Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Heathen systems of religion or morals; pagan practice or belief; paganism.
- n. Heathenish manners or condition; the degraded or uncultured state of those who are uninfluenced by Christianity; barbarism; ignorance; irreligion: as, the heathenism of the slums.
Wiktionary
- n. paganism, heathendom
- n. unchristian state or condition
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The religious system or rites of a heathen nation; idolatry; paganism.
- n. The manners or morals usually prevalent in a heathen country; ignorance; rudeness; barbarism.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any of various religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islamism
Etymologies
- From heathen plus -ism, coined in the 17th century in place of the then-obsolete heathendom. First attested in Francis Bacon, Of the advancement of learning (1605), II. xiv. ยง9: "The heresy of the Anthropomorphites [...] and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the gods to be in human shape" (OED). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“{1} But oh, my friends, think you our guides, our native attendants, deep-sunk in heathenism, were affected by such a scene?”
“But oh, my friends, think you our guides, our native attendants, deep-sunk in heathenism, were affected by such a scene?”
“But, oh, my friends, think you our guides, our native attendants, deep-sunk in heathenism, were affected by such a scene?”
“Judaism, so far from being merged in heathenism, made inroads by conversions on the idolatry of surrounding nations.”
“That the past must always run into the present, and the present proceed from the past, we readily enough allow as a natural and necessary law; yet baptized heathenism is often heathenism still, under another name.”
“That, too, is typical of heathenism, which is sad with unavailing cries and ignorant of answers to any.”
“After that, there are four tracts by George Hamilton on extreme unction, the Biblical sanction for Protestantism (the old "where was your church before Luther?" question), Roman Catholic "heathenism" (the old "you stole your rites from the pagan" routine), and the worship of the saints.”
“And if here he seems to become, in any sense, at one with "heathenism," that he might gain the heathen to the faith of Christ, it was because he found in heathenism some elements of truth akin to Christianity, and a state of feeling favorable to an inquiry into the truths he had to present.”
“We may shudder at the "heathenism" of a Turkish harem, and send missionaries to convert the Mohammedans; we may stand aghast at the idea of twenty thousand Syrian women sold to supply the harems of the Mussulmans, and pour out our money like water to relieve or release them; but wherein is all this a whit worse than what is constantly practiced, with scarce a word of unfavorable comment, in our own "Christian" (?) land?”
Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon: or Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life.
“This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism.”
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Interesting words
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concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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