desecrate

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

desecrate (ˈdɛsɪˌkreɪt)

—vb
1.	to violate or outrage the sacred character of (an object or place) by destructive, blasphemous, or sacrilegious action
2.	to remove the consecration from (a person, object, building, etc); deconsecrate

[C17: from de- + consecrate]

'desecrator

—n

'desecrater

—n

dese'cration

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

desecrate

1674, formed from de- "do the opposite of" + (con)secrate. O.Fr. had dessacrer "to profane," and there is a similar formation in It.; but L. desecrare meant "to make holy," with de- in this case having a completive sense.

Example sentences

We are not going to desecrate hallowed ground.

Area tribes have said the project would desecrate submerged ancestral burial

sites.

Suffer no sacrilegious hand to desecrate it.

To assert so is to desecrate their memories.

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Related Words

profane consecrate defile

dishallow grace intemerate

Matching Quote

"Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth."

-Henry David Thoreau

desecrate

des·e·crate