Definitions

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

  • noun Hostility or indifference to religion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Lack of religion; contempt of religion; impiety.

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

  • noun The state of being irreligious; lack of religion; impiety.

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

  • noun The state of being irreligious.

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

  • noun the quality of not being devout

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French irréligion, from Latin irreligionem.

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Examples

  • In the early Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and in the plays, there is exquisite rendering of religion, and also of irreligion; but the religion is just the simple faith of Pippa or of Theocrite that “God's in his world”; and the irreligion is the Humanist paganism of St Praxed's, not so much hostile to Christianity as unconscious of it.

    Robert Browning Herford, C H 1905

  • The prevailing state of the world is one of irreligion, which is bound to result in anarchy and confusion.

    Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era 1899

  • In the early Dramatic Lyrics and Romances, and in the plays, there is exquisite rendering of religion, and also of irreligion; but the religion is just the simple faith of Pippa or of Theocrite that "God's in his world"; and the irreligion is the Humanist paganism of St

    Robert Browning 1892

  • Russell is right, though, that 'irreligion' is a better label for Hume's position than 'atheism' it is also closer to what Hume's contemporaries meant when they called him an atheist than our own term 'atheist' is. posted by Brandon | 10:35 AM

    Hume and the Natural History of Religion 2006

  • But this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but from the irreligion which is still there.

    Pens��es 1623-1662 1944

  • "You are giving a proof of irreligion which is in bad taste," said

    Caesar or Nothing P��o Baroja 1914

  • There is the pessimist who feels that the "irreligion" of to-day is responsible; there is the one who blames feminism; and there is the type that finds in Democracy and liberalism generally the cause of the receding old-fashioned morality.

    The Nervous Housewife Abraham Myerson 1914

  • He could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and, moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety.

    The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 Rossiter Johnson 1906

  • He could not bear that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and, moved with indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to prove that there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety.

    A Popular History of France from the Earliest Times, Volume 1 1830

  • They seem to be very like that theism or natural religion, which Christians profess to confound with atheism or irreligion which is their exact opposite.

    Emile Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1745

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