Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An opinion, doctrine, or principle held as being true by a person or especially by an organization. See Synonyms at doctrine.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Any opinion, principle, dogma, or doctrine which a person, school, or sect holds or maintains as true.
- n. Synonyms Precept. Dogma, etc. See doctrine.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any opinion, principle, dogma, belief, or doctrine, which a person holds or maintains as true.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof
Etymologies
- Probably from Medieval Latin, from Latin, third person sing. present indicative of tenēre, to hold; see ten- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Like most major religions, my main tenet is to treat other people the way I would like them to treat me.”
“#109 – …. my main tenet is to treat other people the way I would like them to treat me.”
“Your blatant evasion of the main tenet of my assertion proves to me that you do not understand the basics of the Constitution.”
“The book pushes an agenda of choice (which can be code for vouchers), but the essential tenet is that when you look more closely at many middle and upper class schools, you find a lot that needs improvement, and fast.”
The Huffington Post: Lesley Chilcott: Books I Couldn't put Down
“Nevertheless, anti-Semitism is not the main tenet of Hamas ideology.”
“My racism/religion explanation was mainly regarding his posts, and only meant to respond to you insofar as you claimed I must see a certain tenet believed by some Jews as racist (and let me add, as you might say, you do not know me well enough to that prediction).”
“In other words, he does not insist that ID's central tenet is that life is "the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law.”
“He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life.”
“Since the majority of evolutionary biologists are atheists does that mean that this is the main tenet of TOE?”
“The number one tenet is to slide their issues in under the door of social justice and never, ever let it come to a vote, because their positions consistently have only minority support.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tenet’.
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Palindromes
tenet, �?ΙΨΟ�? Α�?ΟΜΗΜΑΤ..., rotator, kayak, tattarrattat, detartrated, racecar, level, step on no pets, fall leaves after..., level, madam, level!, reviver and 107 more...
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Words to live by
adage, maxim, proverb, truism, saw, saying, aphorism, axiom, platitude, dogma, oracle, old wives' tale and 11 more...
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fancy essay words
hiatus, ontology, exegesis, hermeneutics, dialectics, demiurge, ascertain, contention, eschatological, synecdoche, centripetal, centrifugal and 86 more...
whichbe Does anyone else find it odd, based on the events of the Iraq War, that this is the last name of the director of the C.I.A. who assured us there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq? Nov 26, 2008