Search the Dictionary

moral discourse, he may preach it and they may hear it, and yet both continue unconverted heathens. V. Knox. The heathen, as the term is used in the Scriptures, all people except the Jews; now used of all people except Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance…

That part of the world where heathenism prevails; the heathen nations, considered collectively.

Heathendom. [Obs.] Chaucer. Sir W. Scott.

Of or pertaining to the heathen; resembling or characteristic of heathens. "Worse than heathenish crimes." Milton.

In a heathenish manner.

The state or quality of being heathenish. "The . . . heathenishness and profaneness of most playbooks." Prynne.

The religious system or rites of a heathen nation; idolatry; paganism.

To render heathen or heathenish. Firmin.

State of being heathen or like the heathen.

The state, quality, or character of the heathen. Your heathenry and your laziness. C. Kingsley.

e act of addressing as a god. The more immediate objects of popular adoration amongst the heathens were deified human beings. Farmer.

confusion; a confused mixture of sounds, as of voices or languages. That babel of strange heathen languages. Hammond. The grinding babel of the street. R. L. Stevenson.

The title of a heathen deity to whom the Jews ascribed the sovereignty of the evil spirits; hence, the Devil or a devil. See Baal.

A festival of the heathen Celts on the first day of May, in the observance of which great bonfires were kindled. It still exists in a modified form in some parts of Scotland and Ireland.

The object of a contemptuous saying. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen. Ps. xliv. 14

poor and the suffering, to benevolent institutions, or to worthy causes; generosity. The heathen poet, in commending the charity of Dido to the Trojans, spake like a Christian. Dryden.

stianity prevails, or which is governed under Christian institutions, in distinction from heathen or Mohammedan lands. The Arian doctrine which then divided Christendom. Milton A wide and still widening Christendom. Coleridge.

A Jewish or heathen temple. [Obs.] Acts xix. 37.

A god or goddess; a heathen god. To worship calves, the deities Of Egypt. Milton. The Deity, God, the Supreme Being. This great poet and philosopher [Simonides], the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth. Addison.

The belief in demons or false gods. The established theology of the heathen world . . . rested upon the basis of demonism. Farmer.