Afro-Cuban religion, 1950, from Spanish, literally "holiness, sanctity."
late 14c., saunctite, "holiness, godliness, blessedness," from Old French sanctete, saintete, sainctete (Modern French sainteté), from Latin sanctitatem (nominative sanctitas) "holiness, sacredness," from sanctus "holy" (see saint (n.)). The meaning "sacred or hallowed character" (of marriage, the home, life, etc.) is by c. 1600, hence, in reference to those things, "inviolability."
"holiness, sacredness," mid-15c. in Scottish English, from Latin sanctitudinem (nominative sanctitudo) "sacredness," from sanctus "holy" (see saint (n.)).
word-forming element used from late 19c. with a sense of "religious, pertaining to religion, of religion and," from Latin religio "a religion; holiness" (see religion).
1530s, "piety, devoutness, sanctity," a sense now obsolete, from French sanctimonie, from Latin sanctimonia "sacredness, holiness, virtuousness," from sanctus "holy" (see saint (n.)). The surviving sense of "external appearance of devoutness, hypocritical or affected piety" is by 1610s.
late 14c., "cursing, act of laying under a curse," from Latin execrationem (nominative execratio) "malediction, curse," noun of action from past-participle stem of execrari "to hate, curse," from ex "out" (see ex-) + sacrare "to devote to holiness or to destruction, consecrate," from sacer "sacred" (see sacred). From 1560s as "an uttered curse."
c. 1600 (in "Measure for Measure," with the disparaging sense "making a show of sanctity, affecting an appearance of holiness"), from sanctimony + -ous. The un-ironic, literal sense is about as old in English and was used occasionally from c. 1600 to c. 1800. Related: Sanctimoniously; sanctimoniousness.
rhetorical substitution of an epithet for a proper name (or vice versa; as in His Holiness for the name of a pope), 1580s, from Latin, from Greek antonomasia, from antonomazein "to name instead, call by a new name," from anti "instead" (see anti-) + onomazein "to name," from onoma "name" (from PIE root *no-men- "name"). Related: Antonomastic.
1650s, "theological doctrine that human will cooperates with divine grace in regeneration" (implying that the fall did not cost the soul all inclination toward holiness), from Modern Latin synergismus, from Greek synergos "working together" (see synergy). Used in non-theological sense "a working together, cooperation" by 1910 (first of medicines).
