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sin

The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English | Date: 2008

sin • noun   1. commit a sin in the eyes of the churchsynonyms: wrong, wrongdoing, act of evil/wickedness/badness, crime, offense, misdeed, misdemeanor, transgression, error, lapse, fall from grace; lit. trespass.
 2. guilty of sinsynonyms: wrongdoing, wrong, evil, evildoing, wickedness, badness, iniquity, crime, immorality, transgression, error, unrighteousness, ungodliness, irreligiousness, irreverence, profanity, blasphemy, impiety, sacrilege.antonyms: virtue; good.  USAGE NOTES crime, fault, indiscretion, offense, transgression, vice

If you've ever driven through a red light or chewed with your mouth open, you've committed an offense, which is a broad term covering any violation of the law or of standards of propriety and taste. A sin, on the other hand, is an act that specifically violates a religious, ethical, or moral standard (to marry someone of another faith was considered a sin). Transgression is a weightier and more serious word for sin, suggesting any violation of an agreed-upon set of rules (their behavior was clearly a transgression of the terms set forth in the treaty). A crime is any act forbidden by law and punishable upon conviction (a crime for which he was sentenced to death). A vice has less to do with violating the law and more to do with habits and practices that debase a person's character (alcohol was her only vice). Fault and indiscretion are gentler words, although they may be used as euphemisms for sin or crime. A fault is an unsatisfactory feature in someone's character (she is exuberant to a fault), while indiscretion refers to an unwise or improper action (speaking to the media was an indiscretion for which she was chastised). In recent years, however, indiscretion has become a euphemism for such sins as adultery, as if to excuse such behavior by attributing it to a momentary lapse of judgment (his indiscretions were no secret).

© The Oxford Pocket Thesaurus of Current English 2008, originally published by Oxford University Press 2008.