heresy

American  

[her-uh-see] / ˈhɛr ə si /

noun

• heresies
  plural

1. opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system.

2. the maintaining of such an opinion or doctrine.

3. Roman Catholic Church. the willful and persistent rejection of any article of faith by a baptized member of the church.

4. any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs, customs, etc.

   Synonyms:

   dissension, iconoclasm, dissent

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heresy British  

/ ˈhɛrəsɪ /

noun

1. 1. an opinion or doctrine contrary to the orthodox tenets of a religious body or church

   2. the act of maintaining such an opinion or doctrine

2. any opinion or belief that is or is thought to be contrary to official or established theory

3. belief in or adherence to unorthodox opinion

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heresy Cultural  

1. A belief or teaching considered unacceptable by a religious group. (See heretic.)

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• superheresy
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• heresies
  plural

Etymology

Origin of heresy

First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English heresie, from Old French eresie, from Latin haeresis “school of thought, sect,” from Greek haíresis, literally, “act of choosing,” derivative of haireîn “to choose”

Explanation

A heresy is a belief that doesn't agree with the official tenets of a particular religion; heresy is the maintaining of such contrary beliefs. Heresy can be used figuratively: to disagree with the school committee's decisions is considered pure heresy by the faculty. You'll often come across this word in a religious context — the Latin root haeresis, "school of thought or sect," was used by Christian writers to mean "unorthodox sect or belief." This comes from the Greek hairesis, "a taking or choosing," from hairein, "to choose." A person who chooses to believe in heresies is called a heretic.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

heresy heresies

Within a legal profession that venerates judges and worships the Supreme Court, this is borderline heresy.

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2026

Team USA’s second World Cup match was already his fourth game of the tournament and, by then, he was the rare fan who had fallen in love with these moments of soccer heresy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026

Most of the unhappy denizens of Dante’s imagined hell are being eternally tormented for specific moral crimes in categories covering lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery.

From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2026

That, of course, was heresy, since Namath played for the AFL’s New York Jets and the big boys from the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, led by Johnny Unitas, were 19-point favorites.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2025

Seated before a mirror with Mrs. Shigemura behind her, she had learned that her hair was utsukushii and that to cut it would be a form of heresy.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson

Mr. Pynchon, a descendant of the colonial family fictionalized in “The House of the Seven Gables,” infuses his chronicle with a modern sense of paranoia and a taste for countercultural heresies.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

You’ll need more heresies than that to oust an incumbent in a primary.

From Slate ● May 24, 2022

He was equally interested in imposing Christian uniformity through the elimination of Christian heresies like Arianism.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 1, 2020

“The heresies of one period,” she said, always become “the orthodoxies of the next”.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 19, 2018

There were also whispered stories of a terrible book, a compendium of all the heresies, of which Goldstein was the author and which circulated clandestinely here and there.

From "1984" by George Orwell

Related Words

• blasphemy
• fallacy