Search the Dictionary

e, were scattered through the Old World, and afterwards to Jewish Christians living among heathen. Cf. James i.1.

The theory that the heathen divinities originated in the personification of elemental powers.

A heathen; a pagan. [Obs.] No better reported than impure ethnic and lay dogs. Milton.

Pertaining to the gentiles, or nations not converted to Christianity; heathen; pagan; -- opposed to Jewish and Christian.

Heathenism; paganism; idolatry. [Obs.] "Taint of ethnicism." B. Jonson.

rly; as, to evade a blow, a pursuer, a punishment; to evade the force of an argument. The heathen had a method, more truly their own, of evading the Christian miracles. Trench.

An act by which the treats of prodigies were averted among the ancient heathen. [Obs.] Hayward.

the plural) to cattle and other large animals; as, a flock of ravenous fowl. Milton. The heathen . . . came to Nicanor by flocks. 2 Macc. xiv. 14.

men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles Matt. vii. 16. Gather us from among the heathen. Ps. cvi. 47.

e of a non-Jewish nation; one neither a Jew nor a Christian; a worshiper of false gods; a heathen.

Heathenish; pagan.

Paganism; heathenism. [Obs.] Hooker.

To live like a gentile or heathen. [Obs.] Milton.

who does not believe in the divine origin and authority of Christianity; a Mohammedan; a heathen; a freethinker.

in sacrifice, in honor of some deity; also, the wine or liquid thus poured out. Dryden. A heathen sacrifice or libation to the earth. Bacon.

ion; as, a low comparison. In comparison of these divine writers, the noblest wits of the heathen world are low and dull. Felton.

coagent; instrument. Their virtuous conversation was a mean to work the conversion of the heathen to Christ. Hooker. You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements. Coleridge. Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean. Sir W. Hamilton.

A body of myths; esp., the collective myths which describe the gods of a heathen people; as, the mythology of the Greeks.

ecently embraced the Christian faith, and been admitted to baptism, esp. to converts from heathenism or Judaism.

ns at the time of Attila (called Etzel in the poem) and mythological elements pointing to heathen times.