1845: nefarious Jan 3, 2020

Many words have lost a certain amount of religious significance over time that still are used today. 'Adultery' is one, but also 'nefarious' is in another sense. Unlike 'adultery', 'nefarious' doesn't relate to any biblical law, but instead to all of them, coming from the Latin 'fas' meaning 'divine law; the 'ne-' is a negative suffix i.e. 'against divine law; wrong'. These days, 'nefarious' can denote any kind of wicked or otherwise criminal activity.

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