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Hallow vs Desecrate - What's the difference?

hallow | desecrate |

In transitive terms the difference between hallow and desecrate

is that hallow is to make holy, to sanctify while desecrate is   To inappropriately change.

As a noun hallow

is a saint; a holy person; an apostle.

hallow

English

Etymology 1

(wikipedia hallow) From (etyl) . More at (l), (l).

Noun

(en noun)
  • (archaic, or, dialectal) A saint; a holy person; an apostle.
  • All Hallows''' Eve'' (or Halloween), the night before ''All '''Hallows Day (now more commonly known as "All Saints Day").
    Derived terms
    * (l) * (l) * (l) * (l), (l) * (l) * (l), (l) * (l)

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) . More at (l).

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make holy, to sanctify.
  • *
  • Etymology 3

    From (etyl) halowen, from , probably conflated with (etyl) halloer.

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l), (l) (obsolete) * (l), (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To shout, especially to urge on dogs for hunting.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A shout, cry; a hulloo.
  • * 1777 , Robin Hood's Chase , reprinted in
  • Then away they went from merry Sherwood / And into Yorkshire he did hie / And the King did follow, with a hoop and a hallow / But could not come him nigh.
  • *
  • I told them, the sherriff could not be admitted on board this time of night, on which they set up a hallow and rowed as fast as they could towards the vessel's bows.

    Etymology 4

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • *
  • *
  • desecrate

    English

    Verb

  • (transitive)  To profane or violate the sacredness or sanctity of something.
  • * 1916 — James Whitcomb Riley, The Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley , Volume 10.
  • 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 desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough conversion'!
  • (transitive)  To remove the consecration from someone or something; to deconsecrate.
  • (transitive)  To inappropriately change.
  • * 1913 — William Alexander Lambeth and Warren H. Manning, Thomas Jefferson as an Architect and a Designer of Landscapes.
  • 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.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
  • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=Everything a living animal could do to destroy and to desecrate bed and walls had been done. […] A canister of flour from the kitchen had been thrown at the looking-glass and lay like trampled snow over the remains of a decent blue suit with the lining ripped out which lay on top of the ruin of a plastic wardrobe.}}

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Desecrated.
  • *1842 , (Edgar Allan Poe), ‘The Myster of Marie Rogêt’:
  • *:Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most abound—here are the temples most desecrate .