the.com/holiness
the spiritual A-list, where ordinary becomes untouchable and the untouchable becomes adored.
means The quality of being holy — sacred, morally pure, or set apart for the divine — and also a title of reverence (as in His Holiness).
from From Old English hālignes, built on hālig 'holy,' which traces back to a Germanic root meaning 'whole, sound, uninjured' — a cousin of 'hale' and 'whole.' The idea of holiness thus grew from wholeness: to be holy was to be complete, intact, unbroken — set apart not by damage but by perfection. The '-ness' suffix simply turns the adjective into the abstract state of the thing.
- word root
- shares ancestry with whole and healthy
- his holiness
- a literal title for popes and the Dalai Lama
- sacred geography
- every religion claims a no-shoes-allowed zone
- flip side
- the holy and the taboo are linguistic cousins
pope francis — head of catholic church since 2013, considered holy by 1.3 billion catholics
dalai lama — spiritual leader of tibetan buddhism, revered as reincarnation of compassion by followers since 1935
madre teresa — nun in kolkata who worked with dying poor 1946-1997, canonized saint in 2016