sacred: [14] Sacred is one of a wide range of English words that go back to Latin sacer ‘sacred, holy’ (which itself came from the same base that produced Latin sancīre ‘consecrate’, source of English saint, sanctuary, etc). Many of them come via the derived verb sacrāre ‘consecrate’. These include consecrate [15], execrate [16], sacrament [12], and sacred itself, which was originally the past participle of the now obsolete verb sacre ‘consecrate’, a descendant via Old French sacrer of Latin sacrāre.
Amongst other relatives are sacerdotal [14] (from Latin sacerdōs ‘priest’, a derivative of the same base as sacer), sacrifice [13] (from a Latin compound meaning ‘make holy’), sacrilege [13] (from a Latin compound meaning ‘steal holy things’), sacristan and its more heavily disguised relative sexton, sacrosanct [17] (etymologically ‘consecrated with religious ceremonies’), and sacrum ‘bottom section of the spine’ [18] (short for medieval Latin os sacrum ‘holy bone’, which was a direct translation of Greek hieron ostéon, an allusion to the use of the bone in sacrificial ceremonies). => consecrate, execrate, sacrament, sacrifice, sacristan, saint, sanctuary, sexton
sacred (adj.)
late 14c., past participle adjective from obsolete verb sacren "to make holy" (c. 1200), from Old French sacrer "consecrate, anoint, dedicate" (12c.) or directly from Latin sacrare "to make sacred, consecrate; hold sacred; immortalize; set apart, dedicate," from sacer (genitive sacri) "sacred, dedicated, holy, accursed," from Old Latin saceres, from PIE root *sak- "to sanctify." Buck groups it with Oscan sakrim, Umbrian sacra and calls it "a distinctive Italic group, without any clear outside connections." Related: Sacredness.
Nasalized form is sancire "make sacred, confirm, ratify, ordain." An Old English word for "sacred" was godcund. Sacred cow "object of Hindu veneration," is from 1891; figurative sense of "one who must not be criticized" is first recorded 1910, reflecting Western views of Hinduism. Sacred Heart "the heart of Jesus as an object of religious veneration" is from 1765.
实用例句
1. The couple hold the unfashionable view that marriage is a sacred union.
夫妇俩对婚姻的看法很传统，认为婚姻是神圣的结合。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The owl is sacred for many Californian Indian people.
对于很多加利福尼亚的印第安人而言，猫头鹰是圣物。
来自柯林斯例句
3. 300 civilians are believed to have been mas-sacred by the rebels.
据信有300位平民被叛乱分子残杀。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The eagle is the animal most sacred to the Native Americans.
对印第安人来说，鹰是最神圣的动物。
来自柯林斯例句
5. He went south to climb Taishan, a mountain sacred to the Chinese.
