Definitions

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

  • noun Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a Roman Catholic.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who acknowledges the supreme authority of the Pope or of the Church of Rome; a Roman Catholic; a Romanist: usually a term of opprobrium.
  • Of or pertaining to Roman Catholics or Roman Catholicism.

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

  • noun A Roman Catholic; one who adheres to the Church of Rome and the authority of the pope; -- an offensive designation applied to Roman Catholics by their opponents.

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

  • noun derogatory, Christianity Used by some Protestants in referring to Roman Catholics, whose loyalties are seen to be with the papacy in Rome.

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

  • noun an offensive term for Roman Catholics; originally, a Roman Catholic who was a strong advocate of the papacy
  • adjective of or relating to or supporting Romanism

Etymologies

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

[New Latin pāpista, from Late Latin pāpa; see pope.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin papa ("pope") + the suffix -ist.

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