religion

noun

1. (uncountable)Belief in a spiritual or metaphysical reality (often including at least one deity), accompanied by practices or rituals pertaining to the belief.

   “Holonyms: cosmology, ontology, epistemology, philosophy”

   “My brother tends to value religion, but my sister not as much.”

   “Most books on the philosophy of religion try to begin with a precise definition of what its essence consists of. […] I shall not be pedantic enough to enumerate any of them to you now. Meanwhile the very fact that they are so many and so different from one another is enough to prove that the word “religion” cannot stand for any single principle or essence, but is rather a collective name.”

   “Phallicism was, therefore, at the root of all religion, and was definitely the opponent of evil and darkness.”

   “Religion is not identical with spirituality; rather, religion is the form spirituality takes in a civilization; it is not so much the opiate of the masses as it is the antidote for the poisons of civilization.”

2. (countable)A particular system of such belief, and the rituals and practices proper to it.

   “Holonyms: cosmology, ontology, epistemology, philosophy”

   “Near-synonyms: credo, creed”

   “Islam is a major religion, particularly in North Africa and Southwest Asia.”

   “Mormonism is a new religion, while Zoroastrianism is an old one.”

   “Ignorant and ſuperſtitious wretches meaſure the actions of letterd and philoſophical men by the tattle of their nurſes or illiterate parents and companions, or by the faſhion of the country: and people of differing religions judge and condemn each other by their own tenents; when both of them cannot be in the right, and it is well if either of them are.”

3. (uncountable)The way of life committed to by monks and nuns.

   “The monk entered religion when he was 20 years of age.”

4. (informal, uncountable)Rituals and actions associated with religious beliefs, but considered apart from them.

   “I think some Christians would love Jesus more if they weren't so stuck in religion.”

   “Jack's spiritual, but he's not really into religion.”

5. (countable)Any practice to which someone or some group is seriously devoted.

   “At this point, Star Trek has really become a religion.”

   “'Religion can't exist without mystery, especially science, the newest religion.'”

6. (obsolete, uncountable)Faithfulness to a given principle; conscientiousness.

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

verb

1. Engage in religious practice.

   “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.”

   “A similar caution is made by Nye when he calls for a re-evaluation of the category of religion in relationship to theory and method, suggesting that this category: be reconstructed in terms of practice theory as religious practice or religioning.”

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

2. Indoctrinate into a specific religion.

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

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

3. To make sacred or symbolic; sanctify.

   “The discussion of diet and health raises the question of the importance of discussing vegetarianism in relation to the contemporary religioning of health; as Ross remarks, 'health has replaced sexuality as the new privileged discourse of bodily truth and inner essence'.”

   “The ideas expressed above challenge us to continuously rupture and interrupt racialized, classed, gendered, religioned and sexualized norms that inhere between and within institutions, understandings of bodies and our Selves.”

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