HERESY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does heresy mean? 

• HERESY (noun)
  The noun HERESY has 2 senses:

1. any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position

2. a belief that rejects the orthodox tenets of a religion

  Familiarity information: HERESY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HERESY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any opinions or doctrines at variance with the official or orthodox position

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

heresy; heterodoxy; unorthodoxy

Hypernyms ("heresy" is a kind of...):

orientation (an integrated set of attitudes and beliefs)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "heresy"):

iconoclasm (the orientation of an iconoclast)

nonconformance; nonconformism; nonconformity (a lack of orthodoxy in thoughts or beliefs)

Derivation:

heretical (characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A belief that rejects the orthodox tenets of a religion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

heresy; unorthodoxy

Hypernyms ("heresy" is a kind of...):

cognitive content; content; mental object (the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "heresy"):

Arianism (heretical doctrine taught by Arius that asserted the radical primacy of the Father over the Son)

Marcionism (the Christian heresy of the 2nd and 3rd centuries that rejected the Old Testament and denied the incarnation of God in Jesus as a human)

Monophysitism (a Christian heresy of the 5th and 6th centuries that challenged the orthodox definition of the two natures (human and divine) in Jesus and instead believed there was a single divine nature)

Monothelitism (the theological doctrine that Christ had only one will even though he had two natures (human and divine); condemned as heretical in the Third Council of Constantinople)

Nestorianism (the theological doctrine (named after Nestorius) that Christ is both the son of God and the man Jesus (which is opposed to Roman Catholic doctrine that Christ is fully God))

Pelagianism (the theological doctrine put forward by Pelagius which denied original sin and affirmed the ability of humans to be righteous; condemned as heresy by the Council of Ephesus in 431)

Docetism (the heretical doctrine (associated with the Gnostics) that Jesus had no human body and his sufferings and death on the cross were apparent rather than real)

Gnosticism (a religious orientation advocating gnosis as the way to release a person's spiritual element; considered heresy by Christian churches)

tritheism ((Christianity) the heretical belief that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are three separate gods)

Albigensianism; Catharism (a Christian movement considered to be a medieval descendant of Manichaeism in southern France in the 12th and 13th centuries; characterized by dualism (asserted the coexistence of two mutually opposed principles, one good and one evil); was exterminated for heresy during the Inquisition)

Zurvanism (a heretical Zoroastrian doctrine holding that Zurvan was the ultimate source of the universe and that both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman were Zurvan's offspring)

Derivation:

heretical (characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards)

 Context examples 

I never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my scientific heresies.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

But this is heresy, and I must not say it.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Ministers began to preach sermons against "Ephemera," and one, who too stoutly stood for much of its content, was expelled for heresy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That the said Quinbus Flestrin, having brought the imperial fleet of Blefuscu into the royal port, and being afterwards commanded by his imperial majesty to seize all the other ships of the said empire of Blefuscu, and reduce that empire to a province, to be governed by a viceroy from hence, and to destroy and put to death, not only all the Big-endian exiles, but likewise all the people of that empire who would not immediately forsake the Big-endian heresy, he, the said Flestrin, like a false traitor against his most auspicious, serene, imperial majesty, did petition to be excused from the said service, upon pretence of unwillingness to force the consciences, or destroy the liberties and lives of an innocent people.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

You surely don't pronounce such heresies in the University of California?

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)