Unholy

//ʌnˈhəʊli// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not holy; (by extension) evil, impure, or otherwise perverted.

    "The priest's unholy behaviour brought the church into disrepute."

  2. 2
    Dreadful, terrible, excessive, or otherwise atrocious.

    "What an unholy mess your room is in!"

Adjective
  1. 1
    extremely evil or cruel; expressive of cruelty or befitting hell wordnet
  2. 2
    having committed unrighteous acts wordnet
  3. 3
    not hallowed or consecrated wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
sinfulabandonedamissarrantbadbarbarous

Example

More examples

"A young woman most penitently confessed to a friend of mine that an unholy desire to read women's magazines was her besetting 'temptation'."

Etymology

From Middle English unholi, unhaliȝ, from Old English unhāliġ, from Proto-Germanic *unhailagaz, equivalent to un- + holy. Cognate with Scots unhaly, Dutch onheilig, German Low German unhillig, German unheilig, Danish uhellig, Swedish ohelig.

Related phrases

unholy allianceunholy trinityunholy water

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.