Definitions

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

  • noun The anticipated savior of the Jews. Used with the.
  • noun Christianity Jesus. Used with the.
  • noun One who is anticipated as, regarded as, or professes to be a savior or liberator.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A designation of Jesus as the Saviour of the world; the Hebrew equivalent of Christ, the Anointed, but used more frequently as a descriptive title (the Messiah) than as a name: from prophetic passages in the Hebrew Scriptures (where, except in two instances in Daniel, it is translated Anointed, often as a noun) interpreted by Jesus and by Christians as referring to him and universal in scope, but regarded by the Jews as promising a divinely sent deliverer for their own race.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The expected king and deliverer of the Hebrews; the Savior; Christ.

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

  • proper noun Christianity Jesus

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

  • noun an oratorio composed by Handel in 1742
  • noun any expected deliverer
  • noun Jesus Christ; considered by Christians to be the promised deliverer
  • noun the awaited king of the Jews; the promised and expected deliverer of the Jewish people

Etymologies

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

[Middle English Messias, Messie, from Old French Messie, from Late Latin Messīās, from Greek, from Aramaic məšiḥā, the anointed one (from məšaḥ, to anoint) or Hebrew māšîaḥ, anointed (from māšaḥ, to anoint); see mšḥ in Semitic roots.]

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