Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who believes in or maintains polytheism, or the doctrine of a plurality of gods.

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

  • noun One who believes in, or maintains the doctrine of, a plurality of gods.

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

  • noun a believer in, or advocate of, polytheism

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

  • noun one who believes in a plurality of gods

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel had evaporated in the pageantry of the church.

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1206

  • (In its message, the group referred to Sistani as a "polytheist," the extremist Sunni slur about Shiites.)

    LISTEN TO THE AYATOLLAH 2007

  • In other contexts "polytheist" tends to be what the word means.

    languagehat.com: CHINESE 'JEW.' 2005

  • Ghazali bitterly denounced Plato, Socrates and other Greek writers as mushrikuwn 'polytheist' and labelled those who employed their methods and ideas as corrupters of the Islamic faith.

    Archive 2005-10-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2005

  • Ghazali bitterly denounced Plato, Socrates and other Greek writers as mushrikuwn 'polytheist' and labelled those who employed their methods and ideas as corrupters of the Islamic faith.

    Al-Ghazali Tusar N Mohapatra 2005

  • Many of the stories of the Old Testament are borrowed from the polytheist religion of Mesopotamia.

    Harlan Ellison on God 2009

  • Personally, I am a polytheist who values mythology.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » A Sad Victory for Thuggery in Texas 2010

  • Personally, I am a polytheist who values mythology.

    The Volokh Conspiracy » A Sad Victory for Thuggery in Texas 2010

  • Finally, does anyone else note that Catholicism is a polytheist religion?

    Harlan Ellison on God 2009

  • While not quite on this topic, for your entertainment and edification, allow me to quote a poem by the scholarly C.S. Lewis, who knew a thing or two about ancient polytheist writers:

    MIND MELD: Gods by the Bushel 2009

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