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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
apostate
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ In any event, her being so completely of the West is enviable to an apostate like myself.
▪ Leadership in some is weak, unbelieving and in some cases apostate.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Apostate

Apostate \A*pos"tate\, v. i. [L. apostatare.] To apostatize. [Obs.]

We are not of them which apostate from Christ.
--Bp. Hall.

Apostate

Apostate \A*pos"tate\, a. Pertaining to, or characterized by, apostasy; faithless to moral allegiance; renegade.

So spake the apostate angel.
--Milton.

A wretched and apostate state.
--Steele.

Apostate

Apostate \A*pos"tate\, n. [L. apostata, Gr. ?, fr. ?. See Apostasy.]

  1. One who has forsaken the faith, principles, or party, to which he before adhered; esp., one who has forsaken his religion for another; a pervert; a renegade.

  2. (R. C. Ch.) One who, after having received sacred orders, renounces his clerical profession.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
apostate

mid-14c., "one who forsakes his religion or faith," from Old French apostate (Modern French apostat) and directly from Late Latin apostata, from Greek apostasia "defection, desertion, rebellion," from apostenai "to defect," literally "to stand off," from apo- "away from" (see apo-) + stenai "to stand." Used in non-religious situations (politics, etc.) from mid-14c.

apostate

late 14c.; see apostate (n.).

Wiktionary
apostate

a. Guilty of apostasy. n. 1 A person who has renounced a religion or faith. 2 (context Roman Catholicism English) One who, after having received sacred orders, renounces his clerical profession.

WordNet
apostate
  1. adj. not faithful to religion or party or cause

  2. n. a disloyal person who betrays or deserts his cause or religion or political party or friend etc. [syn: deserter, renegade, turncoat, recreant, ratter]

Usage examples of "apostate".

People would complete his mission, even if they must wrest it from his own apostate race, and die Synod had elevated the son of a lowly mining engineer to the primacy of New New Hebrides to oversee that completion.

Holy Terra can never be safe, yet he has so far been content to let us smite the apostate unhindered.

I pronounce thee twice-damned, heretic and apostate, and condemn thy disbelief to the Fire of Hell!

The true People of Holy Terra will never abandon their Holy Mother, and the day shall come when you and all of your apostate race will pay the price for your sins against Her!

She had just left the children alone again with Arlethan Dinger, apostate priest of Kalirion and agent of Thomas Cedarbird.

Even faction, and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the empire of the world.

The apostate soon became the presumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians.

The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence of divine justice.

Christians pursued the soul of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave.

This reflection naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and defects of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation.

Syracuse was delivered by the Greeks, the apostate was slain before her walls, and his African friends were reduced to the necessity of feeding on the flesh of their own horses.

The strangers of the West had violated the city, and bestowed the sceptre, of Constantine: their Imperial clients soon became as unpopular as themselves: the well-known vices of Isaac were rendered still more contemptible by his infirmities, and the young Alexius was hated as an apostate, who had renounced the manners and religion of his country.

The offspring of a marriage between a German gentleman of the court of Frederic the Second and a damsel of Brindisi, Roger was successively a templar, an apostate, a pirate, and at length the richest and most powerful admiral of the Mediterranean.

But as soon as they were united at Anagni and Fundi, in a place of security, they cast aside the mask, accused their own falsehood and hypocrisy, excommunicated the apostate and antichrist of Rome, and proceeded to a new election of Robert of Geneva, Clement the Seventh, whom they announced to the nations as the true and rightful vicar of Christ.

My father never went along, having become an apostate at the age of eight over the exorbitant price of votive candles.