sacrosanct

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin sacrōsānctus (“protected by religious sanction, consecrated with religious ceremonies”),^[2][3][4][5] taken first in a partly English form, sacroseint, which was reinforced by seint (“holy, sacred”),^[4][3] and taken again in the Latin spelling in 1601.^[4][2] The Latin adjective was originally a phrase of sacrō (“by a sacred rite”),^[2][6][7] the ablative of sacrum (“sacred rite”), the neuter of sacer (“sacred”),^[2][3][5] and sānctus, the past participle of sanciō (“to render holy or inviolable”).^[2][3][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls this analysis probable.^[7] The American Heritage Dictionary refers the verb to Proto-Indo-European *sak-.^[5] Some English forms of the 17th century follow an older spelling of French sacrosaint;^[2] compare also Spanish sacrosanto and Portuguese sacrossanto.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Secured against violation by a religious sanction; inviolable, sacred: Holland used the Latin spelling of the word in 1601, in his translation of Pliny.^[2][4][7] The form sacro-seint is older: before 1500 in Barnhart,^[4] about 1500 in Etymonline.^[3] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English accordingly date the word to the late 15th century.^[6][8]

Semantic evolution

Klein glosses the Latin compound "doubly sacred".^[9] In English it applied to persons and to things, especially obligations and laws, that a religious sanction protected from infringement.^[2] It then loosened from religion to anything held to be beyond challenge, such as a person, an institution or a law exempt from charge or criticism.^[6] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a critical shade of the word, "overly or unpleasantly holy".^[7] Sacred came to mean "inviolable" by the 16th century, so the two adjectives overlap.^[10] The noun sacrosanctity is recorded from the mid 17th century.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1500 – the partly English form sacro-seint.^[3] Barnhart dates it before 1500.^[4]
• 1601 – the Latin spelling sacrosanct, secured by a religious sanction from violation, inviolable.^[2][4][7]
• mid 17th century – the noun sacrosanctity.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Most sacred or holy; inviolable.^[11][7][2]
2. Of a person, institution or law: treated as above question or criticism: For the club's older members, the Sunday lunch was sacrosanct.^[6]
3. Too holy or sacred, in an unpleasant way.^[7]

Word family

• sacrosanctity
• sacrosanctness

Related words

• sacred
• sacrament
• saint
• sanction
• sanctify

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins