heathenism

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   dated: beliefs or conduct regarded as non-Christian or irreligious

   The missionary denounced the villagers' customs as heathenism.

From heathen + -ism, coined in the 17th century in place of the then-obsolete heathendom. First attested in Francis Bacon's Of the advancement of learning (1605), II. xiv. §9: "The heresy of the Anthropomorphites … and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the gods to be in human shape" (OED).

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