The term “profane” actually predates “profanity” by more than a hundred years. Its first appearance was in a 1450 philological journal, spelled as “prophane”. Over the years, various spellings have emerged such as “prophain, prophaine, prophan, profeaine, profaine, profan, progayne”, and more. Originating from Old French, the term was borrowed from Latin “profanus”, which originally meant “unclean” but also carried the connotations of “unholy” or “not religious” (with a hint of bias against non-believers). It consists of the prefix “pro-“, signifying “before”, and “fanum”, meaning “temple”. The concept behind it was that individuals deemed profane were not to be allowed into temples alongside more devout worshippers. “Pro” can be traced back to Proto-Indo-European “per”, also meaning “before”, while “fanum” (also the root of “fanatic”) stems from PIE “dhes”, which was used in the formation of religious terms.
