unholy
/ʌnˈhəʊli
/adjective (unholier, unholiest)
1Sinful; wicked: a father killing his son is an act against nature—unholy and loathsome...
- It was difficult for a man considering all kinds of violence sinful to conceive that there did exist some use for it in the universe which was not unholy and sacrilegious.
- They were told of how these sinners writhed and danced to their wicked music in an unholy reverence to their false idol.
- We are endowed by our Creator with the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and to the extent that we choose wrong, we yield to the evil and unholy forces of barbarianism.
Synonyms
ungodly, godless, irreligious, impious, blasphemous, sacrilegious, profane, heathen, pagan, atheistic, non-theistic, irreverent;
wicked, evil, iniquitous, immoral, corrupt, depraved, sinful, devilish, fiendish, demonic, diabolical, satanic, infernal
1.1Unnatural and potentially harmful: an unholy alliance between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry...
- These laws were justified by an unholy alliance of liquor wholesalers, bricks-and-mortar retailers, and Prohibitionists as being necessary to keep booze out of the hands of minors.
- AS IF Scotland did not have enough on its plate with an unholy alliance of political machinations and a spate of injuries bringing expectations to an all-time low, the national team must now face France in Paris first up.
- Since then, the Jamaican media has continued to develop its unholy alliance with the dancehall community, one now characterised by extreme homophobia and anti-law and order sentiments.
Synonyms
unnatural, discordant, incompatible, unusual, improbable;
hellish, made in hell
1.2 informal Used to emphasize how bad something is; dreadful: she was making an unholy racket...
- Craig Tannock, a key figure on Glasgow's music scene since the late 1980s, is more likely to turn talk to radical politics, vegan food and the joy of hearing inexperienced bands making an unholy racket.
- And a bunch of kids, probably cadets or something, are standing in the middle of this unholy mess and holding up handwritten signs indicating which way to turn to get where.
- What worries is when you try to describe it and you think, that does sound like an unholy mess.
Synonyms
shocking, dreadful, outrageous, appalling, terrible, horrifying, horrendous, horrific, frightful
informal ungodly
Derivatives
unholiness
- I truly did not appreciate the breadth and depth of the vindictive power of his unholiness.
- Perhaps they only came and lived in it, and did their best to cleanse it from the unholiness that lived in it before they claimed it.
- More even than the rest of us, he has been sandbagged by the sex- and power-abuse scandal of the past year and the unholiness it has exposed.
Origin
Old English unhālig (see un-1, holy).