Jesuit
Americannoun
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a member of a Roman Catholic religious order Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534.
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(often lowercase) a crafty, intriguing, or equivocating person: so called in allusion to the methods ascribed to the order by its opponents.
adjective
noun
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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
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informal (sometimes not capital) a person given to subtle and equivocating arguments; casuist
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Jesuit
1550–60; < New Latin Jēsuita, equivalent to Latin Jēsu ( s ) + -ita -ite 1
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:
He grew up in Kolkata, moving between a convent school and a prestigious Jesuit boys' school where he first discovered music while cleaning instruments in the music room.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 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
He was the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Jesuit order, and the first to take the name Francis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
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
Religion doesn’t come up much for Dr. Atchley, and when it does, he can call on the years he spent at a Jesuit high school.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
Yet Mr. Weber showed that Dutch Jesuits deployed the camera obscura as a metaphor in devotional literature and sermons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
Months earlier he had been evicted from Plankey Mill Farm near Bardon Mill, just a few miles from Hadrian's Wall, by landowners Jesuits in Britain.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2025
One of his last Facebook posts, earlier this month, as a Chicagoan educated by Jesuits, was, “pope leo XIV is a sout’ sider my friendts. his cassock size is 4XIV.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2025
Jesuits were historically looked on with suspicion by Rome.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025
“My sisters are Jesuits and my little brother I don’t know yet. I’m nothing in particular.”
From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee
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.
