PAGAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does pagan mean? 

• PAGAN (noun)
  The noun PAGAN has 3 senses:

1. a person who does not acknowledge your god

2. a person who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion (not a Christian or Muslim or Jew)

3. someone motivated by desires for sensual pleasures

  Familiarity information: PAGAN used as a noun is uncommon.

• PAGAN (adjective)
  The adjective PAGAN has 1 sense:

1. not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam

  Familiarity information: PAGAN used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PAGAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who does not acknowledge your god

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

gentile; heathen; infidel; pagan

Hypernyms ("pagan" is a kind of...):

nonreligious person (a person who does not manifest devotion to a deity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pagan"):

paynim (a heathen; a person who is not a Christian (especially a Muslim))

idol worshiper; idolater; idoliser; idolizer (a person who worships idols)

Derivation:

pagan (not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam)

paganize (make pagan in character)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion (not a Christian or Muslim or Jew)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("pagan" is a kind of...):

religious person (a person who manifests devotion to a deity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pagan"):

Wiccan; witch (a believer in Wicca)

Derivation:

pagan (not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Someone motivated by desires for sensual pleasures

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

hedonist; pagan; pleasure seeker

Hypernyms ("pagan" is a kind of...):

sensualist (a person who enjoys sensuality)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "pagan"):

Corinthian; man-about-town; playboy (a man devoted to the pursuit of pleasure)

• PAGAN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Not acknowledging the God of Christianity and Judaism and Islam

Synonyms:

ethnic; heathen; heathenish; pagan

Similar:

irreligious (hostile or indifferent to religion)

Derivation:

pagan (a person who does not acknowledge your god)

pagan (a person who follows a polytheistic or pre-Christian religion (not a Christian or Muslim or Jew))

 Context examples 

What did he mean by such a pagan idea?

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The poem’s interpretation as a prophecy of the end of the pagan gods and their replacement by the one, singular god, suggests that memories of this terrible volcanic eruption were purposefully provoked to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

Then he would pass through the land of the Almains and the great Roman Empire, and so to the country of the Huns and of the Lithuanian pagans, beyond which lies the great city of Constantine and the kingdom of the unclean followers of Mahmoud.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Having dated the eruption, the researchers found that Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, which describes the end of the pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god, describes the eruption and uses memories of it to stimulate the Christianisation of Iceland.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The poem, which can be dated as far back as 961, foretells the end of Iceland’s pagan gods and the coming of a new, singular god: in other words, the conversion of Iceland to Christianity, which was formalised around the turn of the eleventh century.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)