cardinal sin

noun

: a very bad or serious sin in Christianity

—often used figuratively or humorously

Giving false information is a cardinal sin in news reporting.

He committed the cardinal sin of criticizing his boss.

Examples of cardinal sin in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web In 1990, the band committed a cardinal sin by signing a major label deal for the Goo LP, but then, by charting singles without compromising chaos, flipped the ‘selling out’ thing on its head. —

Jonathan Rowe, SPIN, 23 Jan. 2024 The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education. —

Collin Binkley and Moriah Balingit, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Jan. 2024 The residents’ cardinal sin is placing all the responsibility on a single man, eager to wash their hands of any guilt. —

Carlos Aguilar, Los Angeles Times, 9 Dec. 2023 But Republicans emerged from a fraught three-and-a-half-hour meeting insisting that such a resolution could not pass without garnering Democratic votes—a cardinal sin among the party faithful. —

Grace Segers, The New Republic, 19 Oct. 2023 Given its extraordinarily rich and long-standing reputation for quality and dependability, Volkswagen committed a cardinal sin against its own identity. —

Bernhard Rieger, Foreign Affairs, 4 Oct. 2015 The cardinal sin of much AI and algorithms today is discrimination baked into their fabric through poor data design. —

Vivek Wadhwa, Fortune, 1 Sep. 2023 Imelda’s cardinal sin was greed; this production, even more than the one at the Public, is an exercise in ecstatic excess. —

Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 21 July 2023 May 11, 2023 See more reactions below: Airing rallies live is the cardinal sin of 2016. —

Shannon Larson, BostonGlobe.com, 11 May 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cardinal sin.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.