noun
Freq #87481
Meanings
-
1
noun
One who destroys religious images or icons, especially an opponent of the Orthodox Church in the 8th and 9th centuries, or a Puritan during the European Reformation.
In the days of the early Christian church, people who opposed the veneration (reverence) of images were called iconoclasts.
Thesaurus
Word family
Related forms
antidogmatismclastclasticcontrariandissenterfreethinkerheresiarchhereticiconiconoclasmiconoclasticnonconformist
Etymology
Borrowed from French iconoclaste and its etymon Medieval Latin īconoclastēs, from Byzantine Greek εἰκονοκλάστης (eikonoklástēs, literally “image breaker”). By surface analysis, icono- + -clast.