different between heretic vs backslider

English

Alternative forms

• hæretic (archaic), hæretick (obsolete), heretick (obsolete), heretike (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English, borrowed from Old French eretique, from Medieval Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin haereticus, from Ancient Greek ????????? (hairetikós, “able to choose, factious”), itself from Ancient Greek ????? (hairé?, “I choose”)

Pronunciation

• (noun): (US) IPA^(key): /?h???t?k/

Noun

heretic (plural heretics)

1. Someone who believes contrary to the fundamental tenets of a religion they claim to belong to.

   • In the framework of traditional medical ethics, the patient
     deserves humane attention only insofar as he is potentially
     healthy and is willing to be healthy—just as in the framework
     of traditional Christian ethics, the heretic deserved humane
     attention only insofar as he was potentially a true believer and
     was willing to become one. In the one case, people are
     accepted as human beings only because they might be healthy
     citizens; in the other, only because they might be faithful
     Christians. In short, neither was heresy formerly, nor is sick-
     ness now, given the kind of humane recognition which, from
     the point of view of an ethic of respect and tolerance, they
     deserve.

2. Someone who does not conform to generally accepted beliefs or practices

Synonyms

• apostate
• dissident
• nonconformist
• sectarian
• separatist
• withersake

Translations

Adjective

heretic (comparative more heretic, superlative most heretic)

1. (archaic) Heretical; of or pertaining to heresy or heretics.

Antonyms

• orthodox

Translations

Related terms

• heresy
• heretical

Anagrams

• chierte, erethic, etheric, heteric, techier

Scots

Etymology

See heresy.

Noun

heretic (plural heretics)

1. heretic
2. (literary style) A poet who claims to have no religion, or to disdain one.

   He's as puir as the heretic baird.

English

Etymology

From backslide +? -er.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?baksla?d?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?bæksla?d??/

Noun

backslider (plural backsliders)

1. A recidivist; one who backslides, especially in a religious sense; an apostate.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Judgement of Dungara’, Black and White, Folio Society 2004, vol. 1, p. 382:

     At night the Red Elephant Tusk boomed and groaned among the hills, and the faithful waked and said: ‘The God of Things as They Are matures revenge against the backsliders.’

   • 2009, Andrew F. Cooper, "Confronting Vulnerability through Resilient Diplomacy: Antigua and the WTO Internet Gambling Dispute with the United States" in Andrew F. Cooper and Timothy M. Shaw (eds.), The Diplomacies of Small States: Between Vulnerability and Resilience, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 216,

     The choice of unilateralism by the US also exposed it to charges that it is a backslider on its WTO commitments.

   • 2012, Brian Bethune, "Two against one: About coupledom and the stigma of being single" in Maclean's, 20 June, 2012, [1]

     You say that you “lapse into coupledom” on occasion. Do you get grief from fellow militant singles for being a backslider?

   She married him thinking to change his ways, and for a while he got religion, but he was ever a backslider; she soon began finding bottles stashed about the house.

Anagrams

• blackrides