Heresy

How to spell heresy

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce heresy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does heresy mean?

1. nounA belief or opinion that contradicts established religious doctrine, or more broadly any view sharply at odds with accepted orthodoxy.

Heresy in a sentence

• The medieval church condemned the scholar's writings as heresy.

• Suggesting that overtime should be unpaid was treated as outright heresy in the office.

Where does heresy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word goes back to the Greek hairesis, which literally meant 'a taking' or 'a choosing', and by extension came to mean a chosen course of thought, a school of opinion, or a sect; it was built on the verb haireisthai, 'to choose for oneself'. Among Greek philosophers the term was quite neutral, simply naming a faction or way of thinking that someone had elected to follow. Early Christian writers gave it a sharply negative turn, using it for any belief deliberately chosen in opposition to accepted doctrine. Latin took the word as haeresis, and Old French reshaped it into heresie, from which English borrowed it in the early 1200s. The modern spelling drops the original 'ai' of the Greek and the 'ae' of the Latin down to a plain 'e', which is exactly why writers reach for a stray extra 'e' or an 'a' in the middle; remembering the single-vowel sequence here-sy keeps it straight.

How the word is built

• heres- (from Greek hairesis: a choosing, a sect)
• -y (noun-forming suffix)