Pharisees

[ (far-uh-seez) ]


A group of teachers among the Jews (see also Jews) at the time of Jesus; he frequently rebukes them in the Gospels for their hypocrisy. Jesus says they are like “the blind leading the blind,” or like “whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.”

Words Nearby Pharisees

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

How to use Pharisees in a sentence

  • The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, "Behold, how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after him."

    His Last Week | William E. Barton
  • Then they began to talk among themselves: what had they done to be thus bidden to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees?

    Tessa Wadsworth's Discipline | Jennie M. Drinkwater
  • Certainly the most cultivated and aristocratic sect--the Sadducees--repudiated it altogether; while the Pharisees held to it.

  • The Pharisees, a famous sect among the Jews, accepted but the five books of Moses, and rejected all the prophets.