Definitions

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

  • adjective Having or showing belief in and reverence for God or a deity.
  • adjective Of, concerned with, or teaching religion.
  • adjective Extremely scrupulous or conscientious.
  • noun A member of a monastic order, especially a nun or monk.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Imbued with, exhibiting, or arising from religion; pious; godly; devout: as, a religious man; religious behavior: used in the authorized version of the Bible of outward observance (Jas. i. 26; Acts xiii. 43).
  • Pertaining or devoted to a monastic life; belonging to a religious order; in the Roman Catholic Church, bound by the vows of a monastic order; regular.
  • Bound by or abiding by some solemn obligation; scrupulously faithful; conscientious.
  • Of or pertaining to religion; concerned with religion; teaching or setting forth religion; set apart for purposes connected with religion: as, a religious society; a religious sect; a religious place; religious subjects; religious books or teachers; religious liberty.
  • Synonyms Devotional.
  • Scrupulous, exact, strict, rigid. See religion.
  • noun One who is bound by monastic vows, as a monk, a friar, or a nun.

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

  • noun A person bound by monastic vows, or sequestered from secular concern, and devoted to a life of piety and religion; a monk or friar; a nun.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to religion; concerned with religion; teaching, or setting forth, religion; set apart to religion
  • adjective Possessing, or conforming to, religion; pious; godly
  • adjective Scrupulously faithful or exact; strict.
  • adjective Belonging to a religious order; bound by vows.

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

  • adjective Concerning religion.
  • adjective Committed to the practice of religion.
  • adjective Highly dedicated, as one would be to a religion.
  • noun A member of a religious order, i.e. a monk or nun.

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

  • adjective concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church
  • adjective of or relating to clergy bound by monastic vows
  • adjective extremely scrupulous and conscientious
  • noun a member of a religious order who is bound by vows of poverty and chastity and obedience
  • adjective having or showing belief in and reverence for a deity

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin religiōsus, from religiō, religion; see religion.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman relegius, religius et al., Old French religious, religieux, and their source, Latin religiōsus ("religious, superstitious, conscientious"), from religiō ("religion").

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Examples

  • Bosanquet distinguished religious beliefs about particular persons or events from ˜religion™ (or, what was the same thing for him, ˜religious belief as a whole™ or ˜religious consciousness™).

    My Recycled Soul 2009

  • The expulsion stirs intense, opposing reactions in Anne and Howard: She begins ­cultivating a resentment ­toward religious ­self-definition, while Howard, absorbing the message that his son is not officially Jewish, wonders whether his own ­parents were right all along about the ­inadvisability of ­religious ­intermarriage.

    Yaddo in the Land of Yoda 2009

  • He aims to: ���build an alliance between secular, religious and ���spiritual but not religious��� progressives ��� in part by challenging the anti-religious biases in parts of the liberal culture (while acknowledging the legitimacy of anger against those parts of the religious world that have embodied authoritarian, racist, sexist, homophobic or xenophobic practices and attitudes).

    Van Jones: Spiritual Activism: The Religious Left Fights Back ��� On All Fronts 2008

  • And I'm sorry but some atheists, particularly, seem invested in making the definition of religion as narrow as possible, some of them do so with religious fervor... which isn't *religious* only because they've carefully defined religion so narrowly that it no longer can be applied to conscience or ideology or cosmology or essential and profound world-view.

    Just in time for the election, Michael Newdow's "Under God" lawsuit is back, along with a challenge to "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency. Ann Althouse 2007

  • They would happily force their religious beliefs upon your children, and force you to live by their hypocritical “religious” rules and standards.

    Printing: The Tree of Liberty is Wilting 2005

  • It was exclusively a _commercial_ city, there was nothing ecclesiastical (Babylon _ecclesiastical_, the religious system had been destroyed, when all _religious_ head-ship had been summed up in Apleon).

    The Mark of the Beast Sidney Watson

  • For, what _religious_ action, -- _i. e._, action prompted and guided by a principle, a religious doctrine, -- is possible without that principle, that doctrine?

    Catholic Problems in Western Canada George Thomas Daly 1914

  • Professed objects of the emigration two-fold -- religious and commercial; chiefly _religious_, for "converting and civilizing the idolatrous and savage Indian tribes" 26

    The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2. From 1620-1816 Egerton Ryerson 1842

  • American people could be made _religious_; consequently they might carry their _religious influence_ to the _polls_; consequently the religious would be able to turn all the profane _out of office_; and consequently, the American people would become a _Christian nation!

    Diary in America, Series One Frederick Marryat 1820

  • Writing in the January Atlantic Monthly, Steven Waldman and John Green identify five “Democratic tribes: ” the religious left (12.6 percent), seculars (10.7 percent), black Protestants (9.6 percent), those who are “spiritual but not religious” (5.3 percent) and the non-Christian religious left (4.6 percent) —Jews, Buddhists and Muslims.

    Printing: Searching for the Democrats - Blue Clues 2006

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