What's the difference between profane and secular?

Profane


Definition:

  • (a.) Not sacred or holy; not possessing peculiar sanctity; unconsecrated; hence, relating to matters other than sacred; secular; -- opposed to sacred, religious, or inspired; as, a profane place.
  • (a.) Unclean; impure; polluted; unholy.
  • (a.) Treating sacred things with contempt, disrespect, irreverence, or undue familiarity; irreverent; impious.
  • (a.) Irreverent in language; taking the name of God in vain; given to swearing; blasphemous; as, a profane person, word, oath, or tongue.
  • (a.) To violate, as anything sacred; to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate; to pollute; as, to profane the name of God; to profane the Scriptures, or the ordinance of God.
  • (a.) To put to a wrong or unworthy use; to make a base employment of; to debase; to abuse; to defile.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Perhaps he modified his language for the NY Times reporter, but the more likely explanation is that his swearing added nothing and was therefore omitted by the writer or edited out; in America, even in liberal New York, profanities still need to be argued into print.
  • (2) Extensive research among the Afghan National Army – 68 focus groups – and US military personnel alike concluded: "One group sees the other as a bunch of violent, reckless, intrusive, arrogant, self-serving profane, infidel bullies hiding behind high technology; and the other group [the US soldiers] generally views the former as a bunch of cowardly, incompetent, obtuse, thieving, complacent, lazy, pot-smoking, treacherous, and murderous radicals.
  • (3) Throughout his life, Dad observed the rule that profanity – effing and blinding as he called it – should be confined to workplaces and other all-male venues where men gathered outside the earshot of women and children.
  • (4) McQueen told this tale several times – the words varied from “McQueen was here” to more profane messages, between tellings – and so, years later, Anderson & Sheppard asked the prince’s valet for the suits of that era back, in order to examine the linings.
  • (5) The phychological aspects of language show an antithesis between learned and profane languages.
  • (6) A few years back, a survey of 3,000 11-year-olds revealed that nine out of 10 parents swear in front of their children, and the average kid heard six different expletives per week (whoever said profanity was bad for your vocabulary?).
  • (7) "Not just because it's wrong to expect officers to endure profanities, but it's also because of the experience of the culprits.
  • (8) Here, in the profane world of anti-music, I could be a hater and say: "This is where the rock'n'roll dream dies.
  • (9) This research examined 160 college students' impressions of an audiotape of a female counselor who used profanity with either a male or female client who did or did not use profanity.
  • (10) Inside the cinema-like forum, all was concentrated silence punctuated by an occasional profanity or a murmur of "My God, North lied all along" from the readers.
  • (11) Effects of counselor's profanity and subject's religiosity on acquisition of lecture content and behavioral compliance were investigated.
  • (12) She was praised by many but also criticised harshly as a result of this exhibition, as her unapologetic nudity was seen by many as downright profane.
  • (13) You expect movie ratings to tell you whether a film contains nudity, sex, profanity or violence.
  • (14) One profanity-ridden post concluded with: "John Oliver told me to do this."
  • (15) Motion pictures were not born in religious practice, but instead are a totally profane offspring of capitalism and technology,” writes Paul Schrader in his landmark book, Transcendental Style in Film, in which he isolates two strains of religious film-making: the epics of Cecil B DeMille, presenting religion as spectacle, with teeming hordes, VistaVision, shafts of light, and strangely subdued orgies.
  • (16) She was roundly abused and Lord Carrington , the Economist and many others told her she was being profane.
  • (17) "It has mad amounts of violence, blood and profanity, and no shortage of racist and homophobic things.
  • (18) Boehner and his staff gamely tried to fend off both the specter of a shutdown and a leadership challenge from his caucus’ more belligerent culture warriors – as late as yesterday, a Boehner spokesman was assuring the press that the battle-tested speaker “wasn’t going anywhere.” No doubt, however, that a cursory look at the long train of sober spiritual leaders in his caucus lining up to deliver pointless CSPAN tantrums over the outrages of science prompted the longtime Ohio Congressman to mutter some variant of Good Lord, not this again together with a few well-chosen profanities for good measure.
  • (19) Cultural comprehensions and spirit of time are registered in numerous sacred and profane monuments of art.
  • (20) A profanity-strewn squabble with bewildered old John Motson was trotted out; Fergie time; the hairdryer treatment; the intimidation of some match officials; the trackside battles with Wenger and Benitez.

Secular


Definition:

  • (a.) Coming or observed once in an age or a century.
  • (a.) Pertaining to an age, or the progress of ages, or to a long period of time; accomplished in a long progress of time; as, secular inequality; the secular refrigeration of the globe.
  • (a.) Of or pertaining to this present world, or to things not spiritual or holy; relating to temporal as distinguished from eternal interests; not immediately or primarily respecting the soul, but the body; worldly.
  • (a.) Not regular; not bound by monastic vows or rules; not confined to a monastery, or subject to the rules of a religious community; as, a secular priest.
  • (a.) Belonging to the laity; lay; not clerical.
  • (n.) A secular ecclesiastic, or one not bound by monastic rules.
  • (n.) A church official whose functions are confined to the vocal department of the choir.
  • (n.) A layman, as distinguished from a clergyman.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Broad-based secular comprehensives that draw in families across the class, faith and ethnic spectrum, entirely free of private control, could hold a new appeal.
  • (2) In women, the secular increase occurred throughout the distribution of body weights but the change in the upper end was two to three times greater than that in the other parts of the distribution.
  • (3) Secularism is the only way to stop collapse and chaos and to foster bonds of citizenship in our complex democracy.
  • (4) These secular changes may explain why some studies have found that oral contraceptives have a protective effect, while others have been unable to show such an effect.
  • (5) Secular growth changes of Stockholm schoolchildren born in 1933, 1943, 1953 and 1963 were studied through samples of about 2500 children in each year.
  • (6) We still have at our disposal the rational interpretive skills that are the legacy of humanistic education, not as a sentimental piety enjoining us to return to traditional values or the classics but as the active practice of worldly secular rational discourse.
  • (7) Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya said the “truth [of the Gospel] continues to be called into question in the Anglican communion” and warned against “the global ambitions of a secular culture”.
  • (8) The previous history of PID, especially in the older age groups, reflects the combined effect of secular trends in PID incidence and temporal changes in diagnostic and treatment practices.
  • (9) 'If you meet, you drink …' Thus introduced to intoxicating liquors under auspices both secular and sacred, the offering of alms for oblivion I took to be the custom of the country in which I had been born.
  • (10) Memories of the conflict – in which up to 3 million people may have died – remain very much alive in the country of 160 million, the world's third largest Muslim state, albeit one with a broadly secular political culture.
  • (11) Causes of the marked secular trends in the cancer mortality and incidence are not clear, but the major causes are suspected to be changes in dietary habits, smoking and drinking habits, and other socio-environmental factors such as marital and reproductive factors.
  • (12) The results indicate an end to the positive secular trend for height and weight at about the same time as the previously reported end to a decreasing age of menarch in London girls.
  • (13) Ahead of disputed parliamentary elections, the secular forces that featured so prominently during the first months of the revolution are struggling.
  • (14) This secular trend was due to both "laboratory drift" and increasing use of diuretics.
  • (15) Thus, effects of secular change in age at menarche may not be wholly benign.
  • (16) A broad coalition of Egyptian organisations – some Islamist, some secular – plan to join with British NGOs and trade unions in protest at Sisi’s arrival ; letters denouncing Cameron’s invitation have been issued by political figures and academics , and an early-day motion in parliament condemning the visit has been signed by 51 MPs, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
  • (17) Their differences highlight Northern Ireland’s often stark dichotomy between religious-based social conservatism and secular progressive liberalism.
  • (18) It follows that the explanation of the secular trend as being an ecosensitive response of individuals to changing levels of well-being is insufficient.
  • (19) Hitchens responded to counter-examples of secular tyranny in the Soviet Union and China by saying: It is interesting to find that people of faith now seek defensively to say that they are no worse than fascists or Nazis or Stalinists.
  • (20) In conclusion it is suggested that medicalization may be conductive to sect development, and that secularization and medicalization are compatible models of social change.