The Greek adjective anosios (ἀνόσιος) means unholy, profane, or wicked — the opposite of hosios (holy, devout). It appears twice in the New Testament (1 Timothy 1:9 and 2 Timothy 3:2), both in vice lists describing people living outside the boundaries of God's holiness.
Anosios describes more than moral failure — it describes a posture of irreverence toward the sacred. In 1 Timothy 1:9, Paul places the "unholy and irreligious" among those for whom the law was made as a restraint. In 2 Timothy 3:2, it appears in the end-times vice list alongside "ungrateful." The pairing is revealing: unholiness and ingratitude go together, because gratitude is itself a form of reverence — an acknowledgment of God as the source of all good. Hebrews 12:16 uses related language in warning against Esau: bebelos (profane) — one who treats the sacred as ordinary. Against this, believers are called to hagiasmos — sanctification, the progressive recovery of holiness.