religion

Less common meanings

5. 5
   monastic lifenoununcountable

   The way of life of vows and devotion that monks and nuns commit themselves to.

   He left the family business to enter religion as a Benedictine monk.

   Life in religion meant rising before dawn for prayer every single day.

   UsageFixed phrases: enter religion means join an order; afterward one lives in religion.

   Note

   "He entered religion at twenty" says that he joined an order, not that he converted, and that difference is easy for a reader to miss. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • In the monastic sense, entering religion means undertaking the religious life, rather than converting to a belief. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   nounobsoleteuncountable

   Faithfulness and conscientiousness in keeping to a given principle.

   Oh with what religion doe I respect and observe the same!

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, The Essayes

   Note

   The Latin scrupulousness behind the word shows through plainly here. John Florio's 1603 translation of Montaigne's Essayes asks "with what religion doe I respect and observe the same!", meaning with what care and fidelity, with no sense of worship. Charles Cotton's later translation has "how religiously do I respect it!", and the adverb religiously still carries this scrupulous sense. Today the noun works only as a deliberate archaism, and readers may at first take it for the devotional sense. Source

   Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 6 facts

   • Religion derives ultimately from Latin religiō, whose meanings included scrupulousness and conscientiousness. en.wiktionary.org
   • John Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays was published in 1603. en.wikipedia.org
   • The quoted wording occurs in Florio's translation, in Book II, Chapter 8; Montaigne is speaking in his own voice. hyperessays.net
   • Religion in this passage expresses faithfulness or conscientiousness rather than worship. en.wiktionary.org
   • Charles Cotton translated Montaigne's Essays later than Florio did. montaignestudies.uchicago.edu
   • Cotton's translation contains the quoted wording. gutenberg.org
7. 7
   verbrareintransitive

   To engage in religious practice or worship.

   Religious practice and action (“religioning”) can be liberating, and can connect displaced people with the spirits of home.

   2015, Alexander Horstmann, Jin-Heon Jung

   On the scales below, circle the one ( + ) or (-) number which best represents your situation on both the belief and practice dimensions for each of the traditional and nontraditional forms of religioning.

   1978, Military Chaplains' Review

   Similarworship, pray

   Note

   Mostly met as the gerund religioning, often set off as a term of art in scholarly writing that treats religion as something people do rather than something they hold. It appears in a chaplains' survey of 1978 and in later studies of practice, migration and hip hop. It is intransitive, and its regular forms are religions, religioning and religioned. Outside such writing it will read as a coinage. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • A chaplains' survey published in 1978 uses religioning. upload.wikimedia.org
   • Later scholarship on religious practice and hip hop uses religioning. en.wiktionary.org
   • Later scholarship on migration uses religioning. en.wiktionary.org
   • The verb has the regular forms religions, religioning and religioned. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   verbraretransitive

   To instruct or indoctrinate someone into a specific faith.

   “What do you do, Donnigan? Spend all yer time religioning yer young?”

   2007, Janette Oke, A Bride for Donnigan

   To men whose minds are thus religioned, tied back to gods that never advance, there can never be any such word as progress

   1890, John R. Kelso, Deity analyzed: In six lectures - Page 37

   Similarindoctrinate, catechize

   Note

   Here the verb takes an object: someone is religioned, or a parent spends time religioning the young. That pattern sets it apart from the verb of plain practice, which needs no object. John R. Kelso's lectures Deity Analyzed use it with scorn, for minds "tied back to gods that never advance". Janette Oke's A Bride for Donnigan (1993) gives it to a teasing, dialect-speaking character. In both it sounds mocking rather than neutral. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • John R. Kelso's Deity Analyzed contains the quoted wording about religioned minds. en.wiktionary.org
   • Janette Oke wrote A Bride for Donnigan. openlibrary.org
9. 9
   verbraretransitive

   To make something sacred or symbolic; to sanctify.

   If queer Jews, Muslims and Christians are engaged in queering their religions, they are also engaged in what might becalled 'religioning' the queer.

   2013, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip, Stephen Hunt

   Similarsanctify, consecrate, hallow, bless

   Oppositedesecrate, profane

   Note

   Scholarly prose uses religioning for investing something with sacred standing: a 1994 study of Shelley speaks of the religioning of health, and an Ashgate research companion on religion and sexuality of religioning the queer. The participle religioned can join lists such as racialized, classed, gendered, religioned. It belongs to academic writing and sounds like jargon anywhere else. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

   • Religioned occurs alongside racialized, classed and gendered. en.wiktionary.org