Diaspora

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Diaspora \Di*as"po*ra\, n. [Gr. ?. See {Diaspore}.]
     Lit., "Dispersion." -- applied collectively: (a) To those
     Jews who, after the Exile, were scattered through the Old
     World, and afterwards to Jewish Christians living among
     heathen. Cf. --James i. 1. (b) By extension, to Christians
     isolated from their own communion, as among the Moravians to


     those living, usually as missionaries, outside of the parent
     congregation.
     [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  diaspora
       n 1: the body of Jews (or Jewish communities) outside Palestine
            or modern Israel
       2: the dispersion of the Jews outside Israel; from the
          destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 587-86 BC when
          they were exiled to Babylonia up to the present time
       3: the dispersion or spreading of something that was originally
          localized (as a people or language or culture)