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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
religious
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a cultural/religious tradition
▪ cultural traditions that date back many generations
a financial/legal/religious etc matter
▪ This is a legal matter and should be discussed with a solicitor.
a religious ceremony
▪ Did you have a religious ceremony when you got married?
a religious community (=people with a particular religion, who often keep themselves separate from society)
▪ The buildings belong to a strict religious community.
a religious experience (=one that makes someone believe strongly in God)
▪ As a young man he had a profound religious experience.
a religious objection
▪ Roman Catholics have religious objections to the use of contraceptives.
a religious war
▪ How many people have died in religious wars?
a religious/military/biological etc metaphor
▪ He uses a military metaphor to describe these women as ‘storming’ the castle of male power.
a religious/Muslim/Catholic etc upbringing
▪ Because of her Catholic upbringing she would not divorce her husband.
a religious/spiritual leader
▪ The Pope is the Roman Catholics’ spiritual leader.
ethnic/religious/civil etc strife
▪ a time of political strife
have a good/religious/tough etc upbringing
▪ He had a rather unsettled upbringing, moving with his father from town to town.
political/emotional/economic/religious etc turmoil
▪ the prospect of another week of political turmoil
political/religious controversy
▪ The agreement attracted a lot of political controversy.
political/religious freedom (=freedom to have any political/religious beliefs )
▪ The people were given political freedom for the first time in the country's history.
political/religious orientation
▪ The meeting is open to everyone, whatever their political or religious orientation.
political/religious overtones (=having a connection to politics or religion that is not directly expressed)
▪ The decision may have political overtones.
political/religious persuasion
▪ We need people with talent, whatever their political persuasions.
racial/religious intolerance
religious affairs
▪ She wanted to be more involved in the church and religious affairs.
religious commitment
▪ Many people have ceased to have any active religious commitment.
religious creed
▪ a religious creed
religious discrimination
▪ There must be an end to religious discrimination.
religious diversity (=including people of many different religions)
▪ The Ivory Coast is a country of great religious diversity.
religious fanatic
▪ a religious fanatic
religious fanaticism
▪ The bombing symbolizes the worst of religious fanaticism.
religious freak
▪ a religious freak
religious liberty
▪ The American Constitution protects religious liberty.
religious right
religious/football/disco etc mania
▪ Keep-fit mania has hit some of the girls in the office.
religious/political principles
▪ Doesn’t working on Sunday conflict with your religious principles?
religious/political/ideological etc dogma
▪ the rejection of political dogma
religious/revolutionary/missionary etc zeal
▪ He approached the job with missionary zeal.
religious/sectarian hatred (=hatred between people who belong to different religious groups)
▪ The law makes it an offence to stir up religious hatred.
sb's religious outlook
▪ The Puritans' religious outlook affected every aspect of their lives.
sb’s (political/religious etc) affiliation
▪ the newspaper’s political affiliations
the religious/clerical establishment
▪ His teachings were unacceptable to the religious establishment of the time.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
deeply
▪ In Gulu, a deeply religious town still torn between fear and hope, a handshake has become a sin.
▪ Clarke was a deeply religious man who enjoyed mathematics, music, and domestic life.
▪ One of 11 children, he was born on a Mississippi farm where his deeply religious father disapproved of the blues.
▪ Both were deeply religious, highly intelligent, moralistic southerners who went to the White House as amateurs and outsiders.
▪ He was noted for his prodigious memory, was deeply religious, and a staunch advocate of temperance.
▪ In making this comment, one is merely pointing out particular ideological characteristics in hard-working, deeply religious, and committed people.
▪ Both Digby's parents were deeply religious and almost violently anti-Catholic.
▪ Sorley was deeply religious in the philosophical sense but always remained out of tune with conventional belief.
■ NOUN
affiliation
▪ Like the Robinson-Pattisson connection they could also easily cross lines of religious affiliation.
▪ Maury Maverick managed to pry out of the Pentagon the religious affiliations of the 220 who died that day in Beirut.
▪ The course is open to people of all nationalities and religious affiliations, and the minimum age is 15 years.
▪ Does he have religious affiliation and whatnot?
▪ But hypersensitivity about colour or religious affiliation can be counterproductive.
▪ In controversy abolitionists found arguments in common whatever their religious affiliations.
▪ She was also a grand needle woman, a talent which rather curiously led to a change in her religious affiliations.
authority
▪ It was the latest instance of an attempt to lend religious authority to political violence.
▪ Many were religious authorities forced to take part in the movement by military men and were inhibited by the barracks-room jingoism.
▪ The religious authorities are not impressed.
▪ The priest, Gleb Yakunin, long has been a vocal critic and irritant to secular as well as religious authorities.
▪ The Roman see emerged as the sole religious authority and centre of a barbarian West.
▪ Witches are simply women who control symbolic power that neither men nor established religious authorities can wrench from them.
▪ A fundamental issue was whether religious authority was ultimately vested in an ecclesiastical succession or in the Bible alone.
▪ Their religious authorities were poetic performers, not bureaucrats.
belief
▪ Her book asked Christians to take a deeper look at some of their religious beliefs.
▪ Fewer than one in 200 cited religious beliefs as their reason for not practicing family planning.
▪ At that stage we ignored other possible religious beliefs.
▪ Christine tells me how there is no distinction on the island between religious belief and social structure.
▪ They were separated from their northern neighbours only by religious beliefs.
▪ For example, must teachers and students salute the flag or follow the curriculum if doing so violates their religious beliefs?
▪ The strength and nature of a person's religious beliefs are often made clear by a will.
▪ Six months after their surgery, patients with no religious beliefs had a death rate three times higher than those who did.
ceremony
▪ For a supposedly religious ceremony there is a very secular feel about the whole affair.
▪ And we were not pleased about the interference in our religious ceremonies.
▪ More often, religious ceremonies required special clothes.
▪ Ruby Wax found some real wackos in West Virginia-loons who use poisonous snakes in religious ceremonies.
▪ Then the entire party walked to the parish church for the religious ceremony.
▪ The next day saw the religious ceremony at Notre Dame - which again led to family difficulties.
▪ I thought a religious ceremony must now follow, but I was mistaken.
community
▪ The Sikhs have a very strong identity as a religious community and an ethnic group.
▪ Was it really Guru Nanak's intention to found a new religion, or even a new religious community?
▪ It is interesting to note that the meals of other religious communities of the times suffered from similar strains.
▪ Confirmations and ordinations did not take place - most of the bishops and many of the religious communities were in exile.
▪ It is shaped and nurtured in a religious community, and its expression grows and develops through history.
▪ As a retreat conductor, preacher and speaker for religious communities in the Assembly and the Synod he had few rivals.
▪ The religious community that subsequently formed here was at its apogee in the twelfth century, when the present church was begun.
conservative
▪ To religious conservatives, however, even these tentative and moderate reforms were undesirable and alarming.
▪ After a ferocious election campaign, religious conservatives lost their majority on the board in November.
▪ Lena is a staunch religious conservative who slaps her atheistic daughter across the face.
▪ Some religious conservatives have opposed the act, saying it unfairly penalizes people to overprotect lesser forms of life.
▪ These days, the evolution issue is symbolic of the legislative influence of religious conservatives.
▪ But the candidate himself continues to court religious conservatives with fiery attacks on abortion and on Sen.
▪ By some estimates, as many as 2 of every 5 Iowa Republican voters are religious conservatives.
▪ Still, Buchanan appeals to abortion opponents, gun rights advocates and religious conservatives.
conviction
▪ They all wear headscarves-whether out of fear or religious conviction I do not know-whereas I don't.
▪ Furthermore, preparation of students to work as church musicians without regard to their religious convictions can lead to confusion or insincerity.
▪ Davis' religious conviction actually gives him a better understanding of Hall, Hall says.
▪ That shows an inner strength which must be the result of his deep religious conviction.
▪ The nuns do not, as a matter of religious conviction, use such modern conveniences, but city bureaucrats were implacable.
▪ Its aim would be to produce people with versatile musicianship and proven teaching ability, based upon religious conviction.
▪ Friends and associates describe Starr, the son of a Baptist minister, as a man of deep religious convictions.
discrimination
▪ It had previously been notorious in some areas for the manipulation of electoral boundaries and for the practice of religious discrimination.
▪ Students do not need to be victims of racism, sexism, religious discrimination, or homophobia to feel like outsiders.
▪ To begin with, Catholics objected to religious discrimination reflected in the unfair allocation of jobs, housing and industrial investment.
education
▪ But religious education has been known to be fundamentalist and in some cases anti-catholic, depending on the teacher.
▪ After his religious education advisors had reviewed the program, he banned it from archdiocesan schools.
▪ Puskat started life in 1969 producing audio visuals for religious education.
▪ Beside her stood Anna Thompson, the director of religious education.
▪ I suspect this, like compulsory religious education, gave me a lifelong scepticism about obligatory elements in any curriculum.
▪ We can apply these to the purpose of religious education in this way: to help pupils 1.
▪ History, geography, technology, music, religious education, art and physical education were not dealt with in separate departments.
▪ Catholic teachers are urged to consider the benefits of such a process of formation for all in religious education.
experience
▪ One of the lessons we have already begun to learn is the almost uncanny universality of the religious experience.
▪ Such a thought finds a corroboration in religious experience and thought.
▪ He had that resigned helplessness which hospital patients and people in the thrall of religious experience have.
▪ Larson cites a medical journal article of 22 years ago that compares a religious experience to a psychotic episode.
▪ The disciplined study of religion reaches out more broadly to cover all the forms of religious experience.
▪ A visit to the ancient ruins, especially on a quiet weekday, comes close to a religious experience.
▪ People who do not understand his religious experience are fools!
▪ The learning is an intense cultural and religious experience.
faith
▪ None in religious education. 9 - strong religious faith?
▪ If that happens, religious faith is born.
▪ Walker was baptised a Presbyterian but throughout her life her religious faith grew ever broader in its outlook.
▪ Latimer is living apart from people, divorced even from religious faith by his visions, when Charles Meunier pays a visit.
▪ To contemplate death may be scary, but for those with a strong religious faith it can be almost exciting.
▪ Such calculations did little to shake the religious faith of the masses.
▪ Some would see his agnosticism, his awareness of the limits to thought, as the only true basis for religious faith.
▪ The effort to inculcate ethical behavior without religious faith seems one of the great fiascoes of the modern age.
fanatic
▪ Pathans are very very orthodox and sometimes religious fanatics.
▪ Born dirt-poor in a southern town to religious fanatics, he was raised on the Bible and the taunts of others.
▪ In December 1980, there was a serious outbreak of rioting by religious fanatics in the northern city of Kano.
freedom
▪ They would know the real meaning of religious freedom, something which has never really existed throughout religious history.
▪ This pioneering plea for religious freedom called diversity not a curse but a glory.
▪ The Humane Slaughter Association is right to point out the arguments in favour of religious freedom.
▪ When the United States assured religious freedom around 1776, the founders paid little notice to this seeker.
▪ The police were called and required the protesters to go home, in the name of religious freedom.
▪ There have been instances of religious freedom being outweighed by a powerful public interest, however.
▪ You've also got various religious freedom fighters.
▪ The principle of religious freedom was established as fundamental from the beginning of this nation.
group
▪ This is particularly true of certain ethnic and religious groups.
▪ Are student religious groups entitled to recognition?
▪ The ostensible reason was Mr Moussa's supposedly unauthorised dialogue with representatives of the main radical religious group, the Jamaat Islamiya.
▪ A religious group called the Legion of Mary went from door to door to collect these portions.
▪ I am a friend of the religious groups, but only of the revolutionary religious groups!
▪ Can student religious groups use school facilities?
▪ Elsewhere, when governments had failed to provide schools, religious groups often moved into the vacuum.
house
▪ At one time a fifth of the town was occupied by religious houses or mission centres.
▪ These were used as retreats in times of attack and for clandestine communication between the religious houses.
▪ All his surviving work was done for religious houses in the south-west.
▪ The comparison is a literal one as far as the abbeys and other religious houses in the list of libraries here are concerned.
▪ The hospitality of the religious houses had become the responsibility of the gentry.
▪ The relationship between the popes and the religious houses could be used to papal advantage.
▪ The religious houses fitted neatly into the papal hierarchical structure.
institution
▪ In these years he was frequently a proctor for prelates and religious institutions in Parliament.
▪ Bishop Drausin founded several religious institutions, including a chapel for nuns who had taken ill and a monastery at Rethondes.
▪ But spontaneous vigour of citizens and of political and religious institutions was not, happily, any longer felt to be sufficient.
▪ It comes as President Bush advances a plan to increase the involvement of religious institutions in solving social problems.
▪ The final obstacle was a disagreement between Shas and Mafdal over the distribution of funds to their client religious institutions.
▪ It is also true that he accorded certain privileges to the Roman Church, as well as to other religious institutions.
instruction
▪ In return, local authorities were empowered to appoint the teachers in such schools for all subjects other than religious instruction.
▪ She started giving children religious instruction and grew to love teaching.
▪ Gradualism had failed to secure the collaboration of masters or their agents in educating or providing religious instruction for the slaves.
▪ More prayers, more training, sometimes with live firing, followed by more religious instruction.
▪ Before the 1988 Act, the governing bodies had control only over religious instruction.
▪ Can students receive religious instruction during school hours?
▪ It laid down guidelines for religious instruction.
▪ There the religious instruction started by his father, who for all the lean years had been his schoolteacher, continued.
leader
▪ It is a system that works well for the police and for the city's religious leaders.
▪ A son of the great religious leader I think it was-he discovered that place where the cannery was.
▪ Enquiries emanated from government departments, newspapers, independent scholars, medical practitioners, religious leaders and philanthropic bodies.
▪ It was the inspired creation of a company of gifted architects, canny financiers, and cosmopolitan religious leaders.
▪ The army stamps with efficiency on any uppity religious leaders.
▪ A: Yes, what is unique this time is that we are convening some civil rights and religious leaders.
▪ His sense of foreboding is shared by almost every politician, diplomat, religious leader and journalist returning from the region.
liberty
▪ Needless to say, this system by no means produced the religious liberty for which people had originally fought.
▪ Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority.
▪ To withhold religious liberty was out of the question.
▪ This case is not about religious liberty.
life
▪ My dream of the religious life is shattered.
▪ They grafted themselves, in fact, on to a much older, more primitive and powerful religious life.
▪ Secondly, he cared about the intellectual question in religious life.
▪ Their religious life is tolerant, pluralist, divided into different sects or denominations.
▪ These embrace the Benedictine, Augustinian, Franciscan and other main traditions of the religious life.
▪ Under the circumstances, it was only natural that religious life be focused on their gods of war.
▪ We have done little to consider how new members entering the religious life nowadays can internalize the attitudes they attempted to represent.
▪ It was the single greatest revelation of his religious life.
man
▪ He had always been a very religious man, which had helped him a lot in the Corporation.
▪ He is a Sikh, a religious man, very calm, kind.
▪ Hadn't she just described the truly religious man, some one in the world but not of it?
▪ My father was not a religious man in his youth and middle years.
▪ Clarke was a deeply religious man who enjoyed mathematics, music, and domestic life.
▪ Starbuck is the religious man and he sees in the doubloon a symbol of the Trinity.
▪ Lord Halifax was a cold fish, a man of steely rectitude, a religious man.
▪ It did not change me in the sense that I am a religious man now.
matter
▪ For him it's a religious matter.
▪ Sophia was not intolerant in religious matters.
▪ If this legislation was repealed, the Pope promised, the church would confine itself to religious matters.
▪ There are just the odd hints here and there that John and Ann did not always see eye-to-eye on religious matters.
▪ Learning, singing, and praying are rolled up into one: catechesis, as opposed to dialogue or concerned interest for religious matters.
▪ During the long sea voyage, Thomas Burns was seen as a leader in more than religious matters.
objection
▪ Sometimes there are often religious objections.
▪ For example, mandatory polio immunization of all school children has been upheld, despite the religious objections of some parents.
▪ Suitable for couples with religious objections to other methods.
▪ What if the family has religious objections?
▪ Can a teacher refuse to follow the curriculum if the refusal is based on religious objections?
observance
▪ Figures of religious observance are harder to come by.
▪ This information also served as the basis for fixing with exactness the dates of major religious observances such as Easter.
▪ A punctilious attention to prayers and strict religious observance would win their indulgence.
▪ Now that religious observance was officially discouraged only a few hundred worshippers were present.
▪ But the universal character of Amnesty should surely bar the incorporation of any religious observance into its official procedures.
▪ As an adult, John did not follow any religious observances.
▪ She was one of the few members of the artistic community who admitted to religious observance.
▪ The seventeen volumes of his survey provide a remarkable survey not only of poverty but of employment and religious observance in London.
party
▪ As these opportunities appeared, so at the same time the lines of religious party and sect hardened.
▪ This process of clarification may not have pleased the ruling classes or the officials of the religious parties.
▪ Having a religious party on board could make all the difference.
▪ Negotiations with Moda'i Initially, Peres directed his efforts towards winning the support of small orthodox religious parties.
▪ The debate was interspersed with angry exchanges as the small religious parties demanded increased state funding for their seminaries and social institutions.
people
▪ To say this is not to belittle the sincere concern shown by many religious people in the debate over embryo research.
▪ They were very religious people that come over here from the old country.
▪ If she or I had taken more trouble I might have been convinced that all religious people were cruel hypocrites.
▪ It is opposed by religious people who believe that one can and should pray at home or in a place of worship.
▪ He wanted to know what are the experiences and emotions of religious people.
▪ Many religious people are as worried as non-religious people about the abuse of religion.
▪ For in the real world there is a nasty side to religion, and religious people can become ogres.
purpose
▪ The divine art of poetry was dedicated once to a religious purpose.
▪ Miracles, however, have a religious purpose, not a scientific one.
▪ Robert Hibbert had died in 1849 leaving money for religious purposes, which was at first applied to theological education.
▪ Firstly, the hill is not suitable for defense or agriculture and therefore must have served a religious purpose.
▪ Now, it was invoked for a religious purpose.
▪ Babylonian science was predicated on a tradition of astronomical record-keeping for strictly religious purposes.
▪ Typical of the late Middle Ages were secular funds created for religious purposes.
▪ What Paul refers to is a real meal, but one with a religious purpose.
right
▪ The religious right can not side wholeheartedly with Dole now.
▪ The religious right has made the strongest claim.
▪ He straddles the ground between party moderates and the religious right.
▪ Within months, the religious right had begun to compare her plight with that of civil rights activists in the I 950s.
▪ But for the religious right, McCain would certainly have won.
▪ The vast majority of Viriginia voters, almost 90 %, were not part of the religious right.
▪ Most fundamentalist churches disapprove of homosexuals, and many leaders of the religious right have aggressively campaigned against gay rights.
▪ The Pentagon opposed the forced discharges, but Congress preferred to pander to the social and religious right.
school
▪ One legitimate fear is that more religious schools will deepen social divides.
▪ True, synagogue membership and religious school enrollment both hover around 50 percent.
▪ The government should be outspoken, and specific, about its fears for teaching in religious schools.
▪ They were joined by teenage boys who surged in waves from the neighboring Mir-i-Arab Madrasa, a religious school.
▪ The palace was also Charles's religious school.
▪ Can public schools provide sign language interpreters for deaf students attending religious schools?
▪ Other religious schools unwilling to go along with them should no longer expect state funding.
▪ Can the state regulate private religious schools?
sect
▪ Paramat stood by the doorway with the attitude of a tourist at the shrine of an exotic religious sect.
▪ Behind the gate, however, is a religious sect that former members say indulges in polygamy and other questionable practices.
▪ He believes Dinah has either been murdered or is the prisoner of a religious sect.
▪ It must be stressed that the Zealots were not a religious sect or denomination.
teaching
▪ There are numerous examples of the manner in which distorted religious teaching has done harm.
▪ Examples are constitutions, revered leaders, widely respected media or books, and religious teachings.
▪ It is not surprising to find, therefore, that the womb has a key role in many religious teachings.
▪ In most religious teachings it is said that no lasting realization can be achieved without many years of practice.
▪ The child starts off with an in-built certainty that sooner or later his intelligence will clash with his religious teaching.
▪ Opposition to contraception is often reinforced by religious teachings and the fear that contraceptives will encourage wives to be unfaithful.
▪ Inpart this reflected religious scruples since mechanical explanations for our behaviour were incompatible with religious teaching.
tradition
▪ Assertiveness training has rarely featured much in religious traditions.
▪ But the abuses of our religious traditions should not keep us from affirming their call to compassion.
▪ A conventional conflict thesis can also conceal vital distinctions between different religious traditions and between liberal and conservative representatives of those traditions.
▪ And modern life, in almost all its aspects, represents a break with religious tradition.
▪ Clearly none of the religious traditions we have examined asserts the latter.
▪ The proposed immigration policy would compromise the First Amendment, which forbids the identification of the United States with any religious tradition.
▪ It is, of course, impossible to do justice to the thought of a religious tradition with one or two quotations.
▪ Increased possibilities of travel together with the effects of immigration have also made possible a wider knowledge of the world's religious traditions.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
along religious/ethnic/party etc lines
▪ In Moldavia there was a marked division of voting along ethnic lines.
▪ In the specific conditions of post-colonial underdevelopment it is not unusual to find conflict within the bourgeoisie working along ethnic lines.
▪ It comes as no surprise that the caricatures are extended along ethnic lines.
▪ On Capitol Hill, reactions to Bush's proposals fell predictably along party lines.
▪ The committee voted 21-16, along party lines, to empower Burton.
▪ The Council, said the author, should not be reported as if it was divided along party lines.
▪ The vote was 35 to 24, almost strictly along party lines.
religious/sex maniac
the religious right
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
Religious education is compulsory in all English schools.
religious studies
▪ a religious festival
▪ All acts of religious worship were banned.
▪ At one time, I was very religious and a regular church-goer.
▪ He's always been a religious man, and I think that has helped him.
▪ Hooker was born on a Mississippi farm, to a deeply religious mother who disapproved of almost all music.
▪ Like many Victorians, Ruskin was deeply religious.
▪ My mother is so religious that she won't even watch TV on Sundays.
▪ Record companies feared the album might cause offence to people on religious grounds.
▪ The tutor discussed her own religious beliefs openly with the students.
▪ The walls were decorated with religious symbols.
▪ They didn't attend because of religious reasons.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But it refers to a religious reality that is so basic and so universal its equivalent has been found almost everywhere.
▪ It also took testimony Thursday from religious leaders.
▪ It depicted what he took to be some sort of religious ritual.
▪ Since it was the Sabbath, he thought he ought to watch something religious.
▪ Some religious have moved into smaller communities whilst carrying the responsibility for caring for their own elderly and sick brothers and sisters.
▪ The variety of religious motivations was not always conducive to harmony among philanthropists.
▪ To pursue political objectives seriously, they must work with the very people whose religious beliefs are most antithetical to their own.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Religious

Religious \Re*li"gious\, n. A person bound by monastic vows, or sequestered from secular concern, and devoted to a life of piety and religion; a monk or friar; a nun.
--Addison.

Religious

Religious \Re*li"gious\ (r?-l?j"?s), a. [OF. religius, religious, F. religieux, from L. religiosus. See Religion.]

  1. Of or pertaining to religion; concerned with religion; teaching, or setting forth, religion; set apart to religion; as, a religious society; a religious sect; a religious place; religious subjects, books, teachers, houses, wars.

    Our law forbids at their religious rites My presence.
    --Milton.

  2. Possessing, or conforming to, religion; pious; godly; as, a religious man, life, behavior, etc.

    Men whose lives Religious titled them the sons of God.
    --Mlton

  3. Scrupulously faithful or exact; strict.

    Thus, Indianlike, Religious in my error, I adore The sun, that looks upon his worshiper.
    --Shak.

  4. Belonging to a religious order; bound by vows.

    One of them is religious.
    --Chaucer.

    Syn: Pious; godly; holy; devout; devotional; conscientious; strict; rogod; exact.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
religious

c.1200, "devout, pious, imbued with or expressive of religious devotion," from Anglo-French religius, Old French religious (12c., Modern French religieux) and directly from Latin religiosus, from religio (see religion). Meaning "pertaining to religion" is from 1530s. Transferred sense of "scrupulous, exact" is recorded from 1590s. Related: Religiousness.

Wiktionary
religious

a. 1 Concerning religion. 2 Committed to the practice of religion. 3 Highly dedicated, as one would be to a religion. n. A member of a religious order, i.e. a monk or nun.

WordNet
religious
  1. adj. concerned with sacred matters or religion or the church; "religious texts"; "a nenber if a religious order"; "lords temporal and spiritual"; "spiritual leaders"; "spiritual songs" [syn: spiritual]

  2. having or showing belief in and reverence for a deity; "a religious man"; "religious attitude" [ant: irreligious]

  3. extremely scrupulous and conscientious; "religious in observing the rules of health"

religious

n. a member of a religious order who is bound by vows of poverty and chastity and obedience

Wikipedia
Religious (Catholic Church)

A religious (using the word as a noun) is, in the terminology of the Catholic Church, what in common language one would call a "monk" or "nun", as opposed to an ordained "priest". A religious may also be a priest if he has undergone ordination, but in general he is not.

More precisely, a religious is a member of a religious institute, someone who belongs to "a society in which members...pronounce public vows...and lead a life of brothers or sisters in common".

Some classes of religious have also been referred to, though less commonly now than in the past, as regulars, because of living in accordance with a religious rule (regula in Latin) such as the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Religious (song)

"Religious" is the second single from American R&B singer R. Kelly's studio album, Untitled (2009). The song was released on October 10, 2009, on R. Kelly's YouTube channel. The single was confirmed in R. Kelly's Twitter.

Usage examples of "religious".

Here Masonry pauses, and leaves its Initiates to carry out and develop these great Truths in such manner as to each may seem most accordant with reason, philosophy, truth, and his religious faith.

March, they discussed these visions, the continued fits of the afflicted, the inability of secular and religious leaders to end the crisis, and the seven unnamed witches mentioned by Tituba.

At Amsterdam, a letter from Guetzlaff introduced them to the priest of the Greek church in that city, Helanios Paschalides, a man of child-like spirit, and long schooled in affliction, who had become awakened to his own religious wants, and who believed himself called to return to Greece and instruct his countrymen.

Laud and his associates, by reviving a few primitive institutions of this nature, corrected the error of the first reformers, and presented to the affrightened and astonished mind some sensible, exterior observances, which might occupy it during its religious exercises, and abate the violence of its disappointed efforts.

Old Testament in the religious history of the world, lies just in this, that, in order to be maintained at all, it required the application of the allegoric method, that is, a definite proportion of Greek ideas, and that, on the other hand, it opposed the strongest barrier to the complete hellenising of Christianity.

Kensington Methodist Hall expressed in stone the ambivalent feelings of prosperous Methodists, who be424 KEN FOLLETT lieved in religious simplicity but secretly longed to display their wealth.

And there are certain things that do not changea man who hates the religious will always be anticlerical, whether he be sick or well, drunk or sober.

The Baath socialist regime, however, with its secular, anticlerical stance, was never comfortable with Shia religious leaders and their followers.

Or, as a good anticlerical, is he mocking the stupidity of the religious cliches Panurge recites?

It was from this antiphonal song, this alternation of versicle and respond, that the religious drama of the Middle Ages took its rise.

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.

Religious proclamations, stentorian speeches by assorted politicians who could not tell a spiral galaxy from a supernova.

The antinomianism of Marcion was ultimately based on the strength of his religious feeling, on his personal religion as contrasted with all statutory religion.

Hens and geese scavenged beneath the patched mud walls, on which apotropaic religious symbols were painted.

But on these lands, and on the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence.