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Of or pertaining to superstition; proceeding from, or manifesting, superstition; as, superstitious rites; superstitious observances.

The thing believed; the object of belief. Superstitious prophecies are not only the belief of fools, but the talk sometimes of wise men. Bacon.

A hypocrite; esp., a superstitious hypocrite. [Obs.]

An omen; a prognostic. [Obs.] This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl Makes all these bodements. Shak.

A superstitious devotion to the mysteries of the religion which one professes. [R] Emerson.

e alphabet; -- formerly so called, either from the cross usually set before it, or from a superstitious custom, sometimes practiced, of writing it in the form of a cross, by way of a charm. From infant conning of the Christcross-row. Wordsworth.

e, resembling the flame of a candle, sometimes seen in churchyards and other damp places, superstitiously regarded as portending death. -- Corpse gate, the gate of a burial place through which the dead are carried, often having a covered porch; -- called also lich gate.

was heard to ring. Mickle. -- Death candle, a light like that of a candle, viewed by the superstitious as presaging death. -- Death damp, a cold sweat at the coming on of death. -- Death fire, a kind of ignis fatuus supposed to forebode death. And round about in reel and rout, The death fires danced at night. Coleri…

kes a ticking sound, which is a call of the sexes to each other, but has been imagined by superstitious people to presage death.

One who is wholly devoted; esp., one given wholly to religion; one who is superstitiously given to religious duties and ceremonies; a bigot. While Father Le Blanc was very devout he was not a devotee. A. S. Hardy.

injury by some magical or fascinating influence. It is still believed by the ignorant and superstitious that some persons have the supernatural power of injuring by a look. It almost led him to believe in the evil eye. J. H. Newman. -- Evil speaking, speaking ill of others; calumny; censoriousness. -- The evil one, th…

ith. The very fetch and ghost of Mrs. Gamp. Dickens. Fetch candle, a light seen at night, superstitiously believed to portend a person's death.

Ominous foreboding; superstitious prognostication. [Obs.] L'Estrange.

To harass; to weary with vexation. How are superstitious men hagged out of their wits with the fancy of omens. L'Estrange.

Foolish; stupid. [Obs.] "The superstitious idle-headed eld." Shak.

the art of employing the powers of nature to produce effects apparently supernatural. -- Superstitious, or Geotic, magic, the invocation of devils or demons, involving the supposition of some tacit or express agreement between them and human beings.

bearing a glutinous fruit. When found upon the oak, where it is rare, it was an object of superstitious regard among the Druids. A bird lime is prepared from its fruit. [Written also misletoe, misseltoe, and mistleto.] Lindley. Loudon.

An object of superstitious homage and fear. Carlyle. The miserable Mumbo Jumbo they paraded. Dickens.

rsecting so as to form a six-pointed star, -- used in early ornamental art, and also with superstitious import by the astrologers and mystics of the Middle Ages.

A mean, sneaking fellow. A set of simpletons and superstitious sneaks. Glanvill.