atheist

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   related to or characterized by or given to atheism

   Atheist leanings.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who does not believe in deities or gods.

   Atheists. One who does not believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, an atheist, is incompetent as a witness, being incapable of being sworn. […] Changed by Acts of 1851, No. 12 (P. S. 1593), under which, no question can be raised as to a witness's "opinions on matters of religious belief.".

3. 3
   noun

   A person who does not believe in a particular deity (but may believe in another deity).

   Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.

4. 4
   noun

   A person who does not believe in any religion (not even a religion without gods); a nonreligious person.

   This is one of the strongest Grounds of Suspicion to me, and assures me that he has very little Regard to Religion in general; that he can pretend to marry you, and know nothing whether you are a Heathen or Christian; an Atheist or religious Person, a Papist or a Protestant; the Man can have no great Value for Religion, that is so little concerned whether his Wife has any, or no; for I take the Thing to weigh as much on one Side as on the other, where there is any serious Confideration at Bottom.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Atheist, recorded from the mid-16th century, is built on the Greek root theos, meaning “god.” The same root appears in enthusiasm, pantheon, and theology.

From Middle French athéiste (athée + -iste), from Latin atheos, from Ancient Greek ἄθεος (átheos, “godless, without god”), from ἀ- (a-, “without”) + θεός (theós, “god”).

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