unholy
Americanadjective
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not holy; not sacred or hallowed.
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impious; sinful; wicked.
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Informal. dreadful; ungodly.
They got us out of bed at the unholy hour of three in the morning.
adjective
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not holy or sacred
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immoral or depraved
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informal outrageous or unnatural
an unholy alliance
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of unholy
before 1000; Middle English; Old English unhālig (cognate with Dutch onheilig, Old Norse ūheilagr ). See un- 1, holy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
An unholy mashup of a waiting room and a bus, the people mover is slow, uncomfortable, and offensive to the eye.
From Slate ● Aug. 18, 2026
Formed in England in 1968, Deep Purple became known as one of the "unholy trinity" of British heavy metal bands, alongside Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.
From BBC ● Apr. 11, 2026
A God’s-eye view captures sparks and flames tearing a circle around his unholy play.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
An unholy specimen, a building creature that is sufficiently weird, necessary, and profitable to wriggle to life in the city’s stifling landscape of land-use regulations: the double duplex.
From Slate ● Jul. 31, 2025
Austin reflected and helped forge the uncompromising position of most black North Carolinians toward Hodges’ plan: “The Negroes of this state will not be stampeded into such an unholy scheme,” he wrote.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
But last week in Mexico, where Maciel founded the ultraconservative Legion in 1941, the scandal took an even unholier turn.
From Time ● Mar. 8, 2010
But nightclub owners had unholier reasons to cry into their champagne last week.
From Time Magazine Archive
Nay, Margaret, I doubt not my thoughts have been far unholier than thine.
From In Convent Walls The Story of the Despensers by M. (Madelaine) Irwin
Eastman, the New Yorker from Ithaca who died in 1990 homeless at age 50, paraded himself as the unholiest Minimalist, an outrageous dissonant dissident even in the seemingly accepting new music community.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2021
In my lord's hands, wielded in the unholiest of all causes, it became a thing accursed.
From The Strolling Saint; being the confessions of the high and mighty Agostino D'Anguissola, tyrant of Mondolfo and Lord of Carmina in the state of Piacenza by Rafael Sabatini
Amfortas, mourning that he, the unholiest of them, should be called, opens a golden shrine and takes out the crystal vessel.
From The Standard Operas (12th edition) Their Plots, Their Music, and Their Composers by George P. (George Putnam) Upton
By the time the men tumbled up, Jacka had his helm up, and the Van der Werf, with sheets pinned, was leaning to it and knocking up the unholiest sputter.
From The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
The next instant he was spluttering and coughing, for the doctor had dexterously placed a pill, composed of the unholiest ingredients of the engineers' stores, in the wide-open cavity.
From The Wireless Officer by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
