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Cathar

American  
[kath-ahr] / ˈkæθ ɑr /

noun

  • Cathari,
    plural
  • Cathars
    plural
  1. (in medieval Europe) a member of any of several rigorously ascetic Christian sects maintaining a dualistic theology.


Cathar British  
/ ˈkæθərɪst, ˈkæθə /

noun

  1. a member of a Christian sect in Provence in the 12th and 13th centuries who believed the material world was evil and only the spiritual was good

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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Etymology

Origin of Cathar

First recorded in 1630–40; from Late Latin Catharī (plural), from Late Greek hoi Katharoí “Novatians,” literally, “the pure”; applied in Medieval Latin to various sects

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

This is the second, through Cathar country in the rarely visited eastern Pyrenees.

From The Guardian Jul. 10, 2021

The blood of St. Peter Martyr, who was killed by Cathar heretics in 1252, was also accorded medicinal properties.

From The New Yorker Jan. 7, 2019

Cathar scholars say doubters are too hung up on the name.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 31, 2018

This latest wave of attention has been vexing to local Cathar scholars who have spent decades battling to have their work taken seriously.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 31, 2018

The central Cathar rite was consolamentum, or baptism with spirit and fire.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various

Most of the Cathari, however, remained among the "believers," free to live ordinary lives in the world in the hope of salvation without the rigor of living as a "perfect."

From Time Magazine Archive

Gregory was relentless in the extermination of Waldenses, Beghards, and the remnants of the Cathari, but he saw nothing to object to in the mysticism and illuminism of his visitors.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

With the eagerness of an impassioned convert he proceeded to reveal all that lifelong intercourse with the Cathari had brought to his knowledge.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

The Cathari, it will be remembered, made their appearance in the first half of the eleventh century, at Monforte, in Lombardy, and they had continued to multiply since then.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

In the Turkish lands the Cathari for the most part embraced Mahometanism, and the sect which had so stubbornly endured the vicissitudes of more than a thousand years disappeared in obscurity.

From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea

Mr. Hoare burnished his legacy in a slew of memoirs, and late in life spent two decades in France, studying a medieval Christian sect known as the Cathars that he chronicled in a historical novel.

From Washington Post Feb. 5, 2020

Any tourist visiting this region would find it hard to miss the ever-present signs and historical markers recounting the tragic tale of the Cathars.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 31, 2018

Rather than being a marketing ploy, the reemergence of interest in the Cathars over the last half a century has been the fruit of that scholarship and digging, Jimenez-Sanchez said.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 31, 2018

“It does not need the ghost of the Cathars to arouse interest.”

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 31, 2018

Of a consubstantial Trinity the Cathars naturally had never heard.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various

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