When I first thought about doing this word of the day, I assumed it was related to religion (religious -> (sac)rilegious?), but in fact they’re not related at all. Sacrilegious is derived from sacrilege, which is from Old French and originally meant “stealing the sacred”. This came from Latin sacreligium, “temple robbery”, which in turn comes from sacrum (sacred) plus legere, “to take” or “to pick up”. Legere is related to lecture, logos, lexicon, law, and other words having to do with collections of words (words that are “taken” or “picked up”).

But as far as the sounds of the words religious and sacrilegious, they are completely identical, except that sacrilegious has a prefix sac-. I haven’t yet done religious as a word of the day, but the basic thrust of the word’s energy is of a light-filled volume compressed through a doorway, and perhaps a judgment. Meanwhile, the sac-, the same as the primary syllable of sacrifice, indicates directed, balanced energy pouring into a container. In the case of sacrifice, the energy is from the sacrifice itself, and Spirit is the container; but in the case of sacrilege, the energy is the sacred Spirit, and the container is the thief’s pouch.

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