Jesuit

American  

[jezh-oo-it, jez-oo-, jez-yoo-] / ˈdʒɛʒ u ɪt, ˈdʒɛz u-, ˈdʒɛz yu- /

noun

1. a member of a Roman Catholic religious order Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534.

2. (often lowercase) a crafty, intriguing, or equivocating person: so called in allusion to the methods ascribed to the order by its opponents.

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adjective

1. of or relating to Jesuits or Jesuitism.

Jesuit British  

/ ˈdʒɛzjʊɪt /

noun

1. a member of a Roman Catholic religious order (the Society of Jesus ) founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola in 1534 with the aims of defending the papacy and Catholicism against the Reformation and to undertake missionary work among the heathen

2. informal (sometimes not capital) a person given to subtle and equivocating arguments; casuist

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Other Word Forms

• Jesuitic
  adjective
• Jesuitically
  adverb
• anti-Jesuit
  noun
• pro-Jesuit
  noun

Etymology

Origin of Jesuit

1550–60; < New Latin Jēsuita, equivalent to Latin Jēsu ( s ) + -ita -ite ¹

Example Sentences

Based on a novel by Shusaku Endo, a Jesuit named Rodrigues steps on the image of Christ to save the lives of Christian villagers in 17th-century Japan.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 1, 2026

In 1990, after almost five decades of shuttling among temporary locations, the painting was finally installed in Rimini’s new Museo della Città, a renovated Jesuit convent.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 23, 2026

Christ Blessing by Quentin Massys, dating from about 1500, used to hang behind the altar in the community's chapel of Campion Hall, the Jesuit home for research and study at the University of Oxford.

From BBC • Dec. 8, 2025

Travis Russell, the 40-year-old Jesuit priest who’s president at Verbum Dei High, was carrying around a Craftsman tool box as if he were the school’s handyman.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 3, 2025

Giovanni Battista Riccioli, a Jesuit supporter of Brahe, named a crater after Copernicus.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton