Impiety
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The state of being impious. uncountable, usually
- 2 unrighteousness by virtue of lacking respect for a god wordnet
- 3 An impious act. countable, usually
"[I]f the world and motion were not from Eternity, then God was Idle; were all the Aſſertions of Ariſtotle, which Theology pronounceth impieties. Which yet we need not ſtrange at from one, of whom a Father ſaith, Nec Deum coluit nec curavit [he neither worshipped nor cared for God]: […]"
- 4 The lack of respect for a god or something sacred. uncountable, usually
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour."
Etymology
From Old French impieté, from Latin impietas, from in- (“not”) + pietas (“piety”), from pius (“pious, devout”) + -tās (“-ty, -dom”). By surface analysis, impious + -ety.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.