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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
heterodox
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ His family were Alawites, a small, heterodox community.
▪ Like the sort of heterodox culture which Mapplethorpe incarnated.
▪ Struggles aim at power and the imposition of a set of heterodox or orthodox norms and symbols.
▪ The challengers include two congressmen and a heterodox former Republican senator who stirs strong emotions on both sides of the political fence.
▪ The difference is that the poststructuralists put themselves forth as heterodox prophets and turn out to be priests of convention.
▪ Yet foreign support can not justify persecution of house churches and other heterodox sects.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Heterodox

Heterodox \Het"er*o*dox\, a. [Gr. ?; ? other + ? opinion; cf. F. h['e]t['e]rodoxe.]

  1. Contrary to, or differing from, some acknowledged standard, as the Bible, the creed of a church, the decree of a council, and the like; not orthodox; heretical; -- said of opinions, doctrines, books, etc., esp. upon theological subjects.

    Raw and indigested, heterodox, preaching.
    --Strype.

  2. Holding heterodox opinions, or doctrines not orthodox; heretical; -- said of persons.
    --Macaulay. -- Het"er*o*dox`ly, adv. -- Het"er*o*dox`ness, n.

Heterodox

Heterodox \Het"er*o*dox\, n. An opinion opposed to some accepted standard. [Obs.]
--Sir T. Browne.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
heterodox

1630s, from Greek heterodoxos, from heteros "the other" (see hetero-) + doxa "opinion," from dokein "to appear, seem, think" (see decent).

Wiktionary
heterodox

a. Of or pertaining to creeds, beliefs, or teachings, especially religious ones, that are different from the norm ('orthodox'), but not sufficiently different to be called heretical.

WordNet
heterodox

adj. characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards [syn: dissident, heretical]

Usage examples of "heterodox".

It seemed strange at first to find ourselves drawn into the complex and often murky world of secret societies and heterodox beliefs.

Whatever those heterodox inclusions may mean, they were, it cannot be stressed too much, totally at variance with orthodox Christianity.

As we have already seen, both Leonardo and Cocteau employed heterodox symbolism in their supposedly Christian paintings.

They seized knowledge wherever they found it: from the Arabs they took the principles of sacred geometry, and their apparent close contacts with the Cathars added an extra Gnostic gloss to their already heterodox religious ideas.

Channing, and a host of others of the modern school of heterodox writers.

Quaker friends, who had aided me in my peace lectures, waited upon me and said, that it would be necessary for me, if I meant to continue to lecture in connection with the Peace Society, not to allow myself to be known as holding heterodox views.

Suffice it to say, I came out of the debate with my savage opponent, not a disbeliever in the Bible or Christianity, but with views farther removed from those which he contended for, and with feelings much less hostile to heterodox extremes perhaps than those with which I entered it.

Gospel preachers joined all on one side, and the upholders of pure morality and a blameless life on the other, so that this division proved a test to us, and it was forthwith resolved that we two should pick out some of the leading men of this unsaintly and heterodox cabal, and cut them off one by one, as occasion should suit.

It is conclusive both in form and matter as to his heterodox attitude towards Christianity.

Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess some good qualities.

He never went to the parish church, and was therefore suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions, though his objection was probably to the concourse of spectators, to whom he must have exposed his unseemly deformity.

Some people hoped that the revival of an almost obsolete law would really help to check the spread of heterodox views, and praised Mr.

Both indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox religious, national, social and ethical doctrines.

The march of science, which had been stopped by the local fogs of Todos Santos some fifty years, had not disturbed the simple Aesculapius of the province with heterodox theories: he still purged and bled like Sangrado, and met the priest at the deathbed of his victims with a pious satisfaction that had no trace of skeptical contention.

Lancelot had stuttered horribly during the latter part of this most heterodox outburst, for he had begun to think about himself, and try to say a fine thing, suspecting all the while that it might not be true.