heresy
/ˈhɛrɪsi
/noun (plural heresies) [mass noun]
1Belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious (especially Christian) doctrine: Huss was burned for heresy [count noun]: the doctrine was denounced as a heresy by the Pope...
- It is also true, as Colin Gunton makes clear in his essay, that Arianism is a perennial Christian heresy.
- Sutcliffe makes no suggestion identifying New Age phenomena with Gnosticism, one of the classic heresies of the Christian church.
- The film comes close to reviving the old Monophysite heresy - as if Jesus is totally divine in nature.
Synonyms
dissension, dissent, dissidence, blasphemy, nonconformity, unorthodoxy, heterodoxy, apostasy, freethinking, schism, faction;
scepticism, agnosticism, atheism, non-theism, non-belief, unbelief, idolatry, paganism, separatism, sectarianism, revisionism
rare tergiversation, recreancy, recusancy
1.1Opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted: the heresy of being uncommitted to the right political dogma...
- But why does it have to be political heresy to go the whole hog?
- Indeed, they are so against the conventional wisdom that they might be termed heresy.
- Hacking out at the Old Course is the ultimate heresy.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French heresie, based on Latin haeresis, from Greek hairesis 'choice' (in ecclesiastical Greek 'heretical sect'), from haireomai 'choose'.