Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One who is sent on a mission, especially one sent to do religious or charitable work in a territory or foreign country.
- noun One who attempts to persuade or convert others to a particular program, doctrine, or set of principles; a propagandist.
- adjective Of or relating to missions or missionaries.
- adjective Engaged in the activities of a mission or missionary.
- adjective Tending to propagandize or use insistent persuasion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Relating or pertaining to missions, especially Christian missions; proper to one sent on a mission; characteristic of a propagandist: as, a missionary society or meeting; missionary funds; missionary work; missionary zeal or energy.
- noun One who is sent upon a mission; an envoy or messenger.
- noun Specifically, a person sent by ecclesiastical authority to labor for the propagation of his religious faith in a community where his church has no self-supporting indigenous organization; hence, any propagandist.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to missions
- noun One who is sent on a mission; especially, one sent to propagate religion.
- noun a Roman Catholic missionary sent by commission from the pope.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A person who travels attempting to spread a
religion or acreed . - noun pejorative A religious messenger.
- noun uncountable A common position for undertaking
sexual intercourse .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun someone who attempts to convert others to a particular doctrine or program
- adjective relating to or connected to a religious mission
- noun someone sent on a mission--especially a religious or charitable mission to a foreign country
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
The word missionary has been adopted in honor of Lydia Gard. Help support Wordnik by adopting your own word here.
Examples
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This missionary had a son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the missionary might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his son away from the institution.
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This, be it remembered, is the testimony of an ideal industrial missionary, who, however, was also much more than a mere industrial missionary*
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The word missionary always seemed to facilitate entry when needed.
Angels of a Lower Flight Susie Scott Krabacher 2007
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The word missionary always seemed to facilitate entry when needed.
Angels of a Lower Flight Susie Scott Krabacher 2007
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The word missionary always seemed to facilitate entry when needed.
Angels of a Lower Flight Susie Scott Krabacher 2007
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The statistics concerning the personnel of the mission should state how many are priests, the term missionary being used exclusively of such.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 10: Mass Music-Newman 1840-1916 1913
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Since the Cooch seems awfully interested in what consenting adults do in private the follow up question regarding “the acts” part of his response should have been whether missionary is the only “culturally normal” form of hetero sex
Think Progress » Cuccinelli: Homosexual ‘acts’ are a ‘detriment to our culture.’ 2010
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Since the Cooch seems awfully interested in what consenting adults do in private the follow up question regarding “the acts” part of his response should have been whether missionary is the only “culturally normal” form of hetero sex.
Think Progress » Cuccinelli: Homosexual ‘acts’ are a ‘detriment to our culture.’ 2010
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So now a third phase has begun: the Service signals, in a report of some 94 pages, the emergence of professionally-organized Dawa preaching, which it defines as the missionary spreading of a radical-Islamic ideology from a Salafist angle, which explicitly does not champion violence.
Archive 2007-10-01 GayandRight 2007
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So now a third phase has begun: the Service signals, in a report of some 94 pages, the emergence of professionally-organized Dawa preaching, which it defines as the missionary spreading of a radical-Islamic ideology from a Salafist angle, which explicitly does not champion violence.
A report on Salafism in the Netherlands.... GayandRight 2007
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