All 8 Uses
heathen
in
Beowulf - (translated by: Gummere)
(Auto-generated)
- Whiles they vowed in their heathen fanes altar-offerings, asked with words {2e} that the slayer-of-souls would succor give them for the pain of their people.†
*heathen = someone who is not civilized or not moral OR an offensive term for a person who does not believe in a preferred religion
- Their practice this, their heathen hope; 'twas Hell they thought of in mood of their mind.†
- Bloody the billows were boiling there, turbid the tide of tumbling waves horribly seething, with sword-blood hot, by that doomed one dyed, who in den of the moor laid forlorn his life adown, his heathen soul, and hell received it.†
- More silent seemed the son of Ecglaf {14a} in boastful speech of his battle-deeds, since athelings all, through the earl's great prowess, beheld that hand, on the high roof gazing, foeman's fingers, — the forepart of each of the sturdy nails to steel was likest, —heathen's "hand-spear," hostile warrior's claw uncanny.†
- Some man, however, came by chance that cave within to the heathen hoard.†
- 'Tis his doom to seek hoard in the graves, and heathen gold to watch, many-wintered: nor wins he thereby!†
- The Danes are heathens, as one is told presently; but this lay of beginnings is taken from Genesis.†
heathens = people who are not civilized or not moral -- typically said humorously OR an offensive term for people who do not believe in a preferred religion
- {40c} Ten Brink points out the strongly heathen character of this part of the epic.†
heathen = someone who is not civilized or not moral OR an offensive term for a person who does not believe in a preferred religion
Definitions:
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(1)
(heathen) an often offensive (sometimes humorous) word for someone seen as uncivilized or immoral, especially because she does not share the speaker’s religion or comes from a culture unfamiliar with itThis word is usually judgmental or insulting, so today it is used mostly in joking contexts or when describing older attitudes.
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) More rarely, heathen can refer to a person who lacks culture or good taste.