# heresy

Pronunciation: US say "HER-uh-see" /ˈhɛɹəsi/; UK

## Noun

1. A belief or teaching, held by someone within a religion, that goes against what that religion officially accepts.
   - Simple: A belief held by a member of a religion that goes against the religion's accepted teachings.
   - _The council condemned his teaching on grace as heresy and ordered his books burned._
   - _Early Christian writers spent whole volumes listing and refuting the heresies of rival sects._
2. A group member's opinion that challenges accepted views or provokes controversy, for example in politics, philosophy, or science.
   - Simple: A group member's opinion that goes against accepted ideas or causes strong disagreement, as in politics or science.
   - _I'll offer a heresy of my own: most of our marketing budget is wasted._
   - _Among the party's most loyal members, any talk of raising taxes was treated as heresy._

## Origin

From Middle English heresie, from Old French heresie (modern hérésie), from Latin haeresis, from Ancient Greek haíresis ("choice, system of principles"). This comes from hairéomai ("to take for oneself, to choose"), the middle voice of hairéō ("to take"), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ser-, which may be related to Welsh herw ("theft, raid") and Ancient Greek steréō ("to deprive of").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/heresy (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).