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Webster 1913 Edition


Zealot

Zeal′ot

,
Noun.
[F.
zélote
, L.
zelotes
, Gr. [GREEK]. See
Zeal
.]
One who is zealous; one who engages warmly in any cause, and pursues his object with earnestness and ardor; especially, one who is overzealous, or carried away by his zeal; one absorbed in devotion to anything; an enthusiast; a fanatical partisan.
Zealots
for the one [tradition] were in hostile array against
zealots
for the other.
Sir J. Stephen.
In Ayrshire, Clydesdale, Nithisdale, Annandale, every parish was visited by these turbulent
zealots
.
Macaulay.

Webster 1828 Edition


Zealot

ZEALOT

,
Noun.
Zelot. One who engages warmly in any cause, and pursues his object with earnestness and ardor. It is generally used in dispraise, or applied to one whose ardor in intemperate and censurable. The fury of zealots was one cause of the destruction of Jerusalem.

Definition 2024


zealot

zealot

English

Noun

zealot (plural zealots)

  1. One who is zealous, one who is full of zeal for his own specific beliefs or objectives, usually in the negative sense of being too passionate; a fanatic
  2. (historical) A member of a radical, warlike, ardently patriotic group of Jews in Judea, particularly prominent in the first century, who advocated the violent overthrow of Roman rule and vigorously resisted the efforts of the Romans and their supporters to convert the Jews.
  3. (historical) A member of an anti-aristocratic political group in Thessalonica from 1342 until 1350.

Quotations

  • 1733: For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight; / His can't be wrong whose life is in the right Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, Epistle III
  • 1892: Yet Brahmans rule Benares still, / Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill, / And beef-fed zealots threaten ill / To Buddha and Kamakura. Rudyard Kipling, Buddha at Kamakura

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