Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of or pertaining to gentiles or pagans; characteristic of or practised by the heathen: as, heathenish rites.
  • Hence Uncivilized; uncultured; rude; savage; degraded; cruel.

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

  • adjective Of or pertaining to the heathen; resembling or characteristic of heathens.
  • adjective Rude; uncivilized; savage; cruel.
  • adjective Irreligious.

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

  • adjective Sort-of or somewhat like a heathen.

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

  • adjective not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Sabbath, they inserted a clause for the taking down of maypoles, which they called a heathenish vanity.

    The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. From Charles I. to Cromwell David Hume 1743

  • Look back at the passage on the first page of this chapter: the Old Testament church both created and borrowed Gehenna, its idea of a hell, from its surrounding countries and so-called heathenish cultures.

    God is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu … Carlton Pearson 2010

  • Look back at the passage on the first page of this chapter: the Old Testament church both created and borrowed Gehenna, its idea of a hell, from its surrounding countries and so-called heathenish cultures.

    God is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu … Carlton Pearson 2010

  • Look back at the passage on the first page of this chapter: the Old Testament church both created and borrowed Gehenna, its idea of a hell, from its surrounding countries and so-called heathenish cultures.

    God is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu … Carlton Pearson 2010

  • Look back at the passage on the first page of this chapter: the Old Testament church both created and borrowed Gehenna, its idea of a hell, from its surrounding countries and so-called heathenish cultures.

    God is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu … Carlton Pearson 2010

  • Every - thing which recalled a heathenish idol-cult was re - jected, and the meaning of imago was limited mainly to painted images, which being flat and therefore not similar materially to what they represented, suggested only the shape of divine figures.

    ICONOGRAPHY JAN BIA��OSTOCKI 1968

  • This practice of sitting up all night with the dying, H.W. justly enough condemns as "heathenish:" "The houses cannot hold them all, of course, and they sit round out-of-doors in the street, the younger ones often falling asleep on the ground, and then they 'hab fever.'"

    Letters from Port Royal Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) Elizabeth Ware [Editor] Pearson

  • Doctrine, and prefer to regard it as a "heathenish" teaching, still the fact remains that the careful and unprejudiced student will find indisputable evidence in the writings of the Early Christian Fathers pointing surely to the conclusion that the doctrine of Metempsychosis was believed and taught in the Inner Circle of the Early Church.

    Mystic Christianity William Walker Atkinson 1897

  • No one listens now to the precipitate ignorance which would set aside as "heathenish" the high civilization of this great race; but justice is not yet done to their past development and present capacities.

    Hindu literature : Comprising The Book of good counsels, Nala and Damayanti, The Ramayana, and Sakoontala Kalidasa 1866

  • _ Pray thee, Doralice, why do we quarrel thus a-days? ha! this is but a kind of heathenish life, and does not answer the ends of marriage.

    The works of John Dryden, $c now first collected in eighteen volumes. $p Volume 04 John Dryden 1665

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