latitudinarian
Americanadjective
noun
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a person who is latitudinarian in opinion or conduct.
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Anglican Church. one of the churchmen in the 17th century who maintained the wisdom of the episcopal form of government and ritual but denied its divine origin and authority.
adjective
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permitting or marked by freedom of attitude or behaviour, esp in religious matters
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(sometimes capital) of or relating to a school of thought within the Church of England in the 17th century that minimized the importance of divine authority in matters of doctrine and stressed the importance of reason and personal judgment
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of latitudinarian
First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin lātitūdin- (stem of lātitūdo “breadth, width”; see latitudinal) + -arian
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.
Was James Madison correct that it should dispose us against a latitudinarian interpretation of Congress’s powers?
From Washington Post • Mar. 17, 2017
There are a fair number of undramatised biographical passages, which make for bumpy reading, even if one takes a latitudinarian position about the role of information in novelistic prose.
From The Guardian • Jun. 8, 2012
Armchair analysts lolled under many latitudinarian banners�Jung, Adler, Reich, Stekel, Krafft-Ebing, Sacher-Masoch and even the Marquis de Sade.
From Time Magazine Archive
To the time of Joseph II. belongs the liberal, latitudinarian supernaturalist Jahn of Vienna, whose “Introduction to the Old Testament,” and “Biblical Antiquities” did much to raise the standard of biblical learning.
From Church History, Vol. 3 of 3 by Kurtz, J. H.
In a letter to his friend Isaac Williams he says: 'Everything I hear makes me fear that latitudinarian opinions are spreading furiously in the Church of England.
From The Map of Life Conduct and Character by Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
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.
