The Collaborative International Dictionary
Maronite \Mar"o*nite\, n.; pl. Maronites. (Eccl. Hist.) One of a body of nominal Christians, who speak the Arabic language, and reside on Mount Lebanon and in different parts of Syria. They take their name from one Maron of the 6th century.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1510s, from Late Latin Maronita, from Maron, name of the founder. A sect of Syrian Christians (4c.), originally Monothelites, subsequently (1216) united with the Catholic Church.
Usage examples of "maronite".
The Maronites did not show as much courage in the field as in the standing committee at Deir el Kamar, but several of the Shehaab princes who headed them, especially the Emir Kais, maintained the reputation of their house and displayed a brilliant courage.
In 1920 the Maronite leadership managed to convince France to set up a Lebanese state which the Maronites and the other smaller Christian sects allied to them would dominate.
Arafat and his men, most of whom were Muslims, were welcomed by the Lebanese Muslims and Druse, who identified with their cause and, more important, thought they could use the PLO guerrillas to bring pressure on the Maronite Christians to share more power.
In the twelfth century, the Maronites, abjuring the Monothelite error, were reconciled to the Latin churches of Antioch and Rome, and the same alliance has been frequently renewed by the ambition of the popes and the distress of the Syrians.
A Maronite Christian, Hage had lived for years in the United States before returning to Beirut, and had developed important contacts in Washington, including Richard Perle, the influential neoconservative and outside advisor to the Pentagon.
Maronites, even Uniats, even Moslems and Druses had to admit that something had happened.
Maronites, Druses, Baptists, Buddhists, Tritheists, American Catholic Eclectics.
Sikhs killing Hindus, Hindus killing Muslims, Druses killing Maronites, Jews killing Arabs, Arabs killing Christians and for a delicious variation Christians killing each other seasoned to taste and served piping hot by the snappy dresser on the evening news but, frozen fishcakes?
Prince of Scotland and myself in the desert, reducing us to save our lives by the speed of our horses--not that he had stirred up the Maronites to attack us upon this very occasion, had I not brought up unexpectedly so many Arabs as rendered the scheme abortive-- not for any or all of these crimes does he now lie there, although each were deserving such a doom--but because, scarce half an hour ere he polluted our presence, as the simoom empoisons the atmosphere, he poniarded his comrade and accomplice, Conrade of Montserrat, lest he should confess the infamous plots in which they had both been engaged.
There were Copts, Maronites, Nestorians, Catholicsincluding an American Catholic offshoot known as Eclectics or "Lesterites," Apostolic Preresurrectionists, Third Millenniumists or "Threesers," New Eastern Rite adherents, and Jumpers.
Consider that the same things have been said by the inhabitants of Chios and Abydos, by the Aeneans, the Maronites, the Thasians, by the natives of Paros and Samos, of Larissa and Messene, and by the people over there in Achaia, and that those upon whom he was able to inflict most injury have made the gravest and most serious charges.
Even if they had killed four—the two Maronites, the pilot, and Baal—they would have gained only one point.
The Maronites had looked startled when they saw her, and that shouldn't have been the case if they had come to meet an Israeli agent.
She didn't know whether real Maronites buckled their seat belts or merely trusted to God to protect the Chosen, but here she had to do it.
That could be the end of her, because the Maronites would just fire into her car until they killed her.