Definition of desecrate

1916 It's reform -- reform! You're going to `turn over a new leaf,' and all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back into Sunday-school, where you can make love to the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, and the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at Class of your `thorough conversion'! " James Whitcomb Riley, The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=539882264&tag=Riley,+James+Whitcomb:+The+Complete+Works+of+James+Whitcomb+Riley,+Volume+10&query=desecrate&id=Ril10Wo Volume 10.

(transitive) To remove the consecration from someone or something; to deconsecrate.
(transitive) To inappropriately change.

1913 A subsequent owner has desecrated the main hall and robbed it of its grandeur by putting in a floor just beneath the circular windows in order to make an upper room over the hall. " William Alexander Lambeth and Warren H. Manning, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=/texts/english/modeng/publicsearch/modengpub.o2w&act=surround&offset=423737532&tag=Lambeth,+William+Alexander+and+Manning,+Warren+H.:+Thomas+Jefferson+as+an+Architect+and+a+Designer+of+Landscapes,+1913&query=desecrate&id=LamThom Thomas Jefferson as an Architect and a Designer of Landscapes.

Translations:

French: désécrer
(trans-mid)
(trans-bottom) (trans-top, to inappropriately change)
(trans-mid)
(trans-bottom)
German: entheiligen, schí¤nden

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