Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A member of an ascetic Jewish sect that existed in ancient Palestine from the second century BC to the second century AD.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One of a sect among the Jews in the time of our Savior, remarkable for their strictness and abstinence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Member of a first-century ascetic Jewish sect, in ancient Palestine from the second century BCE to the second century CE. The Essenes are believed to have been the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a member of an ascetic Jewish sect around the time of Jesus
  • adjective said of or relating to the Essenes

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin Essēnī, the Essenes, from Greek Essēnoi, from Aramaic ḥasên, pl. of ḥasē, righteous, holy; see ḫśy in Semitic roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek Ἐσσηνοι (Essenoi); earlier etymology unknown

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Examples

  • A hundred years earlier, the Jews we know by the name Essene, read that same verse in Isaiah and literally moved to live in the Judean desert out by the Dead Sea in a little settlement called Qumran, where they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

    The Jesus Dynasty James D. Tabor 2006

  • A hundred years earlier, the Jews we know by the name Essene, read that same verse in Isaiah and literally moved to live in the Judean desert out by the Dead Sea in a little settlement called Qumran, where they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.

    The Jesus Dynasty James D. Tabor 2006

  • Hemma's Asante jacket, featured in Essene magazine, April 2010

    Feature: Harlem’s Hemma Couture « 2010

  • The reporter was surprised, and I went on that the Dead Sea Scrolls were going to reaffirm that Jesus was a member of that brotherhood of Egyptian seers called the Essene-a fact already known from Philo, the famous Egyptian historian of Jesus 'time.

    The Autobiography of Malcolm X X, Malcolm, 1925-1965 1964

  • And on the other theory, how comes it, if the Divine Master was, as some modern writers claim, an Essene, that is, a Buddhist monk, that there is not in all his teachings a trace of the speculations and legends which had already buried the fundamental truths of Buddhism almost out of sight?

    The Dawn and the Day Or, The Buddha and the Christ, Part I Henry Thayer Niles 1863

  • 'Essene' is about a Benedictine monastery in Three Rivers, Michigan.

    Seminal Image #965 2009

  • That is not a bad idea, given our cultural understanding of "intellectual," but for now I am sticking with Pharisee for purely historical reasons relating to the fact that Israeli religious thought was divided in to two major (Pharisee and Saducee) and a few minor (such as Essene and Zealot) divisions.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • That is not a bad idea, given our cultural understanding of "intellectual," but for now I am sticking with Pharisee for purely historical reasons relating to the fact that Israeli religious thought was divided in to two major (Pharisee and Saducee) and a few minor (such as Essene and Zealot) divisions.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • That is not a bad idea, given our cultural understanding of "intellectual," but for now I am sticking with Pharisee for purely historical reasons relating to the fact that Israeli religious thought was divided in to two major (Pharisee and Saducee) and a few minor (such as Essene and Zealot) divisions.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • That is not a bad idea, given our cultural understanding of "intellectual," but for now I am sticking with Pharisee for purely historical reasons relating to the fact that Israeli religious thought was divided in to two major (Pharisee and Saducee) and a few minor (such as Essene and Zealot) divisions.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

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