When something is consecrated it is declared to be sacred or holy. Many Catholics, for example, believe that bread and wine are consecrated, or made sacred during Holy Communion, becoming the body and blood of Christ.
The word consecrated is made up of the Latin suffix con-, which expresses intensive force and sacrare meaning "dedicate." Something that is consecrated is intensely dedicated to the point of being declared holy. It's not just bread and wine that people believe to be consecrated. Lincoln mentioned how soldiers consecrated the Civil War battlefield in his Gettysburg Address: "The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
