noun
definition
The act of defiling.
definition
The state of being defiled.
definition
The protection of the interior walls of a fortification from enfilading fire, as by covering them, or by a high parapet on the exposed side.
Examples of defilement in a Sentence
To touch a leper was forbidden, and the offence involved ceremonial defilement.
In this caste, however, as in all others, there are certain kinds of occupation to which a member could not turn for a livelihood without incurring serious defilement.
Forrest in the Indian government records have shown that the sepoys' fears of defilement by biting the new cartridges had a considerable foundation in fact.
By John 's time Jewish ceremonial washings were connected with cleansing from defilement.
The term " holiness " in this connexion consists positively in the fulfilment of ceremonial obligations and negatively in abstaining from the defilement caused by heathen customs and superstitions, but it also includes obedience to the moral requirements of the religion of Yahweh.
By a true confession of faith, by every good deed, word and thought, by continually keeping pure his body and his soul, he impairs the power of Satan and strengthens the might of goodness, and establishes a claim for reward upon Ormazd; by a false confession, by every evil deed, word and thought and defilement, he increases the evil and renders service to Satan.
It contemplates the assumption of the vow for a limited period only, and gives particular details as to the atoning ceremonies at the sanctuary by which the vow must be recommenced if broken by accidental defilement, and the closing sacrifice, at which the Nazarite on the expiry of his vow cuts off his hair and burns it on the altar, thus returning to ordinary life.
The Vendidad, the priestly code of the Parsees, contains in 22 chapters (fargard) a kind of dualistic account of the creation (chap. 1), the legend of Yima and the golden age (chap. 2), and in the bulk of the remaining chapters the precepts of religion with regard to the cultivation of the earth, the care of useful animals, the protection of the sacred elements, such as earth, fire and water, the keeping of a man's body from defilement, together with the requisite measures of precaution, elaborate ceremonies of purification, atonements, ecclesiastical expiations, and so forth.
The minds of the native regiments quartered there were maddened by rumours of the defilement which the new Minie cartridges would entail upon them, and incendiary fires broke out in the lines.
In Judaism, as in other, especially Oriental, religions, the natural dislike of material defilement has been elevated into a religious sentiment, and made to support a complicated system of quasi-sanitary abstinences and ceremonial purifications; then, as the ethical element predominated in the Jewish religion, a moral symbolism was felt to reside in the ceremonial code, and thus aversion to impurity came to be a common form of the ethico-religious sentiment.
They regarded oil as a defilement, even washing it off if anointed with it against their will.
In 1610 appeared his History of Ecclesiastical Benefices, " in which," says Ricci, "he purged the church of the defilement introduced by spurious decretals."