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To transgress; to violate; to sin against. [Obs.] Marry, sir, he hath offended the law. Shak.

One who offends; one who violates any law, divine or human; a wrongdoer. I and my son Solomon shall be counted offenders. 1 Kings i. 21.

To ravish; to violate. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Specifically, to violate; to commit an indecent assault upon (a female).

To cause to violate an oath or a vow; to cause to make oath knowingly to what is untrue; to make guilty of perjury; to forswear; to corrupt; -- often used reflexively; as, he perjured himself. Want will perjure The ne'er-touched vestal. Shak.

To violate sexually; to debauch; to dishonor.

To violate, as anything sacred; to treat with abuse, irreverence, obloquy, or contempt; to desecrate; to pollute; as, to profane the name of God; to profane the Scriptures, or the ordinance of God. The priests in the temple profane the sabbath. Matt. xii. 5.

To violate concord or agreement; to have a difference; to fall out; to be or become antagonistic. Our people quarrel with obedience. Shak. But some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed. Shak.

To violate; to ravish; to defiour. [Obs.] Rich spoil of ransacked chastity. Spenser.

Hence, to rescue and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's violated law. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Gal. iii. 13.

, or the like. Peaceful sleep out the sabbath of the tomb. Pope. Sabbath breaker, one who violates the law of the Sabbath. -- Sabbath breaking, the violation of the law of the Sabbath. -- Sabbath-day's journey, a distance of about a mile, which, under Rabbinical law, the Jews were allowed to travel on the Sabbath.…

Hence, not to be profaned or violated; inviolable. Secrets of marriage still are sacred held. Dryden.

To depart voluntarily from the path of duty prescribed by God to man; to violate the divine law in any particular, by actual transgression or by the neglect or nonobservance of its injunctions; to violate any known rule of duty; -- often followed by against. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned. Ps. li. 4. All have s…

Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; -- with of. "Tender of property." Burke. The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion. Tillotson.

One who violates his allegiance and betrays his country; one guilty of treason; one who, in breach of trust, delivers his country to an enemy, or yields up any fort or place intrusted to his defense, or surrenders an army or body of troops to the enemy, unless when vanquished; also, one who takes arms and levies war ag…

One who transgresses; one who breaks a law, or violates a command; one who violates any known rule or principle of rectitude; a sinner. The way of transgressors is hard. Prov. xiii. 15.

To commit any offense, or to do any act that injures or annoys another; to violate any rule of rectitude, to the injury of another; hence, in a moral sense, to transgress voluntarily any divine law or command; to violate any known rule of duty; to sin; -- often followed by against. In the time of his distress did he tr…

One who violates a truce, covenant, or engagement.

Not submissive to rule; disregarding restraint; disposed to violate; turbulent; ungovernable; refractory; as, an unruly boy; unruly boy; unruly conduct. But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. James iii. 8.

Capable of being violated, broken, or injured. -- Vi"o*la*bly, adv.