How to Use heretic in a Sentence

heretic

noun
Definition of hereticnext
Synonyms for hereticnext
  • The church regards them as heretics.
  • Galileo was condemned as a heretic for supporting Copernicus's thesis that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa.
  • In 1431, Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 30 May 2021
  • Guston, too, was a heretic in flight from the high priests of culture.
    — Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 4 Sep. 2020
  • The bishop has to decide whether to have the minister tried as a heretic.
    — Celia Storey, Arkansas Online, 24 May 2021
  • Keeping the state out of the church’s business meant clerics lost the power to suppress heretics by force.
    — The Economist, 4 Nov. 2017
  • Only a heretic could so do, and they can be burned for apostasy.
    — Evan Waite, The New Yorker, 19 May 2020
  • Each of our perspectives is gospel and those who disagree with us are heretics.
    — Cameron Smith, AL.com, 30 Dec. 2017
  • Bygone heretic hunters and their enablers have become the hunted.
    — Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 7 Sep. 2017
  • Pageantry was at a premium, even for the auto-da-fé, which involved a single heretic and no fire.
    — Matthew Gurewitsch, WSJ, 16 Oct. 2017
  • In the south of France there was a long crusade in the thirteenth century against heretics known as Cathars (the ‘Albigensian crusade’).
    — Dan Jones, Time, 10 Oct. 2019
  • For that and other writings, he was declared a heretic, which led him to further critiques of the papal system.
    — Mike Ellis, USA TODAY, 31 Oct. 2017
  • But if Bannon is angry, Breitbart will treat Trump like a heretic.
    — Paul Bond, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Aug. 2017
  • This Irish native, accused by her stepchildren of performing witchcraft in 1324, was the first in the country to be tried for sorcery as a heretic.
    — Blair Donovan, Country Living, 30 Sep. 2022
  • Like heretics before him, the quarterback faced an informal ban from the sport for his demonstration.
    — Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2017
  • According to one medieval legend, Nicholas punched a heretic in the nose at the Council of Nicea -- the meeting in 325 that formed the first consensus on Christian doctrine.
    — Daniel Burke, CNN, 6 Dec. 2019
  • Soon kingdoms plunged into chaos and war, burning heretics and hanging traitors under orders from popes and queens.
    — Kim Heacox, Alaska Dispatch News, 31 Oct. 2017
  • The Islamic State group has attacked Afghan Shiites in the past, and views the religious minority as heretics.
    — NBC News, 6 Mar. 2020
  • Although the Yazidis are a monotheistic faith, IS viewed them as heretics and sought to annihilate both the people and their religious sites.
    — Washington Post, 4 Aug. 2019
  • The liberal as heretic, pursued and denounced by the angry children of the liberal ideal.
    — John Kass, Twin Cities, 11 June 2017
  • In 1521, the church declared Luther a heretic and excommunicated him.
    — Carole Carlson, Post-Tribune, 27 Oct. 2017
  • His subjects include the past; his revered fellow reformer William Tyndale, the great Bible translator burned as a heretic; himself.
    — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 5 Apr. 2020
  • Iran is dominated by Shiite Muslims, whom the hard-line Sunnis of al-Qaida see as heretics.
    — Adam Goldman, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Aug. 2019
  • In 1521, Martin Luther was branded a heretic and had his writings banned because of his religious beliefs.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 25 May 2018
  • To have reservations about something that is treated as sacrosanct is to be an unbeliever, or worse, a heretic, and thus someone to be cast out.
    — Ian Buruma, Harper's Magazine, 2 June 2023
  • As only the second black woman to serve in the United States Senate, Harris has come up against many a fight, but she's weathered the heretics like a true pro—with poise, passion, and just the right amount of backbone.
    — Wired Staff, WIRED, 10 June 2019
  • While Christian heretics and women thought to be witches would suffer unimaginably from this association, the Jews were destined to reap the worst of it in the form of the Holocaust.
    — John-Paul Pagano, National Review, 23 Sep. 2019
  • Cronin, a sort of heretic within this heretic group, has his own idea for differentiating between living and not.
    — Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2023
  • This approach demands that those who were once secular priests—the leaders of the philanthropic sector—abandon their cassocks and accept the mantle of the heretic.
    — Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Affairs, 15 Jan. 2024
  • Francis has already been facing a revolt on the right, with his most bitter conservative critics decrying him as a heretic.
    — Kate Brady, Washington Post, 2 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'heretic.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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