desanctify
verbEtymology From de- + sanctify.
1
To remove the sanctified status of.
- His utopias aren't "nowhere" -- counterfactual examples of how things might be in order to desanctify how things actually are.1991 September 22, Alan Trachtenberg, “UNIVERSITY PRESSES; Shaping America's Dreams in Chicago”, in The New York Times:
- Christianity desanctifies these in a positive sense by rendering them subservient to an entirely different kind of holiness.1997 August 23, Martin Buber, Israel and the World, page 178:
2 more examples
- In so doing, he transforms the Foxian compulsion to distinguish true martyrs from false ones —and thus to differentiate his own saint-making project from medieval hagiography—into a model of textual criticism, directed at detecting and desanctifying the false martyr through the critical medium of marginalia.2008, Jennifer Summit, Memory's Library: Medieval Books in Early Modern England, page 170:
- What qualifies? Anything that could significantly influence your deciding whether to rent the place — low-flying jets, overflowing drains or desanctified brothels.2009 October 29, Randy Cohen, “Our Home Was a Bawdy House”, in The New York Times Magazine:
- Synonyms
- desacralize, desecrate, unconsecrate
- Related terms
- desanctification