Cathar
Americannoun
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Cathari,
plural
-
Cathars
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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
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
Farther south, the town of Mazamet is home to the Cathar Museum.
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
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
We have no means of obtaining an approximate estimate of the Waldenses, but in some districts they must have been almost as numerous as the Cathari.
From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea
On the mainland, in spite of the vigilance of the Inquisition, Cathari continued to exist in Piedmont.
From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume II by Henry Charles Lea
Yet in Italy the Cathari lasted long after they had disappeared from France.
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
More appealing today, however, is the idea that the Cathars mounted the first major rebellion against the Catholic Church.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018
That translates literally as “The Cathars, an idea received” but implies something that is widely accepted as fact but probably not true.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 31, 2018
And in Beziers each August, the town shows a sound and light spectacular called: "The Cathars, the Treasure of Beziers."
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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
