Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A believer in Manichaeism.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as Manichean.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Alternative form of Manichaean.
  • adjective Alternative form of Manichaean.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an adherent of Manichaeism
  • adjective of or relating to Manichaeism

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Late Latin Manichaeus; see Manichaeism.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Originally plurale tantum; from the Middle English Manichēs, Manichēes, Manachēes, Manychēis, from the post-Classical Latin Manichaeī, the nominative plural form of Manichaeus, from the Byzantine Greek Μανιχαῖος (Manikhaios, "Manichaean").

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Examples

  • Stephen Runciman has some interesting things to say about the Bogomils of Yugoslavia in his book, “The Medieval Manichee.”

    Matthew Yglesias » Karadzic’s Defense

  • Though he refers to Mani, the third-century originator of the Manichee sect, he seems chiefly concerned with the Cathars of his day.

    William of Auvergne

  • Just now thou wert but a coward, and now thou art a Manichee.

    Westward Ho!

  • Ramus his logic, and Plato his dialectical devilries, to confess himself a Manichee, and, for aught he knew, a turbaned Turk, or

    Westward Ho!

  • For after it was clear that he was ignorant of those arts in which I thought he excelled, I began to despair of his opening and solving the difficulties which perplexed me (of which indeed however ignorant, he might have held the truths of piety, had he not been a Manichee).

    The Confessions

  • When he was a Manichee he was a heretic, not a heathen, and so might have some esteem for the church; or if he had no respect for the church as the church, yet he might -- even by the confession of Papists themselves, so far as he saw the consent of so many nations, and the prescription of so long time, and other like arguments in the church, to induce him reverence it.

    The Sermons of John Owen

  • About the year 390, Priscillianus, a Manichee, and a

    The Sermons of John Owen

  • Having nothing now left but his own person, he disposed of that again on several other occasions, where the corporal or spiritual necessities of his neighbor called for relief: once to a certain Manichee at Lacedæmon, whom he served for two years, and before they were expired, brought both him and his whole family over to the true faith.

    The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints January, February, March

  • Photius relates that a certain Manichee woman, named Kallinike sent her two sons Paul and John to Armenia to propagate this heresy; the name is corrupted from Pauloioannoi

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 11: New Mexico-Philip

  • (Leipzig, 1901); Beausobre, Hist.crit. de Manichee et du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734); Bousett, Hauptprobleme der

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 9: Laprade-Mass Liturgy

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