Sacred

How to spell sacred

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sacred

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sacred mean?

1. adjectiveConnected with a god or religion and treated with deep reverence, or regarded as too important to be interfered with.

Sacred in a sentence

• The temple sits on ground the local community considers sacred.

• The family treated their grandmother's recipes as something almost sacred.

Where does sacred come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb sacrare, meaning 'to consecrate' or 'to set apart for a god', which was built on the adjective sacer, literally 'holy' or 'dedicated to the divine'. In Middle English there was a verb 'sacren', meaning to consecrate or hallow, and 'sacred' began life as its past participle, much as 'blessed' relates to 'bless'. Over time the participle hardened into a standalone adjective and the underlying verb faded from everyday use, which is why we now say 'sacred' but rarely 'sacre'. The same sacer root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including 'sacrifice' (to make holy), 'sacrament', and 'consecrate', so recognising the sacr- core helps fix the spelling. The word settled into English around the 1300s and has kept its religious weight ever since.

How the word is built

• sacr- (from Latin sacer: holy, set apart)
• -ed (adjective suffix from an old past participle)