Idolatry

4 definitions found

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

  Idolatry \I*dol"a*try\, n.; pl. {Idolatries}. [F. idol[^a]trie,
     LL. idolatria, L. idololatria, Fr. Gr. ?; ? idol + ?
     service.]
     1. The worship of idols, images, or anything which is not
        God; the worship of false gods.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
              Of alienated Judah.                   --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Excessive attachment or veneration for anything; respect
        or love which borders on adoration. --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  idolatry
       n 1: religious zeal; willingness to serve God [syn: {devotion}, {veneration},
             {cultism}]
       2: the worship of idols; the worship of images that are not God
          [syn: {idol worship}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  129 Moby Thesaurus words for "idolatry":
     Amor, Christian love, Eros, Platonic love, accolade, admiration,
     adoration, adulation, affection, agape, allotheism, animatism,
     animism, anthropolatry, apotheosis, appreciation, approbation,
     approval, arborolatry, ardency, ardor, attachment, awe,
     bepraisement, bibliolatry, bodily love, breathless adoration,
     brotherly love, caritas, charity, congratulation, conjugal love,
     consideration, courtesy, deference, deification, demonolatry,
     desire, devotion, duty, eloge, encomium, esteem, estimation,
     eulogium, eulogy, exaggerated respect, exaltation,
     excessive praise, faithful love, fancy, favor, fervor, flame,
     flattery, fondness, free love, free-lovism, glorification, glory,
     great respect, heart, heathendom, heathenism, heathenry,
     hero worship, high regard, homage, hommage, honor, hygeiolatry,
     iconolatry, idolism, idolization, idolizing, kudos, lasciviousness,
     laud, laudation, libido, like, liking, lionizing, litholatry, love,
     lovemaking, magnification, married love, meed of praise, monolatry,
     ophiolatry, overcommendation, overestimation, overlaudation,
     overpraise, overprizing, paean, pagandom, paganism, paganry,
     panegyric, passion, patriolatry, physical love, physiolatry,
     phytolatry, popular regard, popularity, praise, prestige,
     pyrolatry, regard, respect, reverence, reverential regard,
     sentiment, sex, sexual love, shine, spiritual love, tender feeling,
     tender passion, tribute, truelove, uxoriousness, veneration,
     weakness, worship, yearning
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Idolatry
     image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul
     describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook
     God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28).
     
       The forms of idolatry are, (1.) Fetishism, or the worship of
     trees, rivers, hills, stones, etc.
     
       (2.) Nature worship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars,
     as the supposed powers of nature.
     
       (3.) Hero worship, the worship of deceased ancestors, or of
     heroes.
     
       In Scripture, idolatry is regarded as of heathen origin, and
     as being imported among the Hebrews through contact with heathen
     nations. The first allusion to idolatry is in the account of
     Rachel stealing her father's teraphim (Gen. 31:19), which were
     the relics of the worship of other gods by Laban's progenitors
     "on the other side of the river in old time" (Josh. 24:2).
     During their long residence in Egypt the Hebrews fell into
     idolatry, and it was long before they were delivered from it
     (Josh. 24:14; Ezek. 20:7). Many a token of God's displeasure
     fell upon them because of this sin.
     
       The idolatry learned in Egypt was probably rooted out from
     among the people during the forty years' wanderings; but when
     the Jews entered Palestine, they came into contact with the
     monuments and associations of the idolatry of the old
     Canaanitish races, and showed a constant tendency to depart from
     the living God and follow the idolatrous practices of those
     heathen nations. It was their great national sin, which was only
     effectually rebuked by the Babylonian exile. That exile finally
     purified the Jews of all idolatrous tendencies.
     
       The first and second commandments are directed against
     idolatry of every form. Individuals and communities were equally
     amenable to the rigorous code. The individual offender was
     devoted to destruction (Ex. 22:20). His nearest relatives were
     not only bound to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment
     (Deut. 13:20-10), but their hands were to strike the first blow
     when, on the evidence of two witnesses at least, he was stoned
     (Deut. 17:2-7). To attempt to seduce others to false worship was
     a crime of equal enormity (13:6-10). An idolatrous nation shared
     the same fate. No facts are more strongly declared in the Old
     Testament than that the extermination of the Canaanites was the
     punishment of their idolatry (Ex. 34:15, 16; Deut. 7; 12:29-31;
     20:17), and that the calamities of the Israelites were due to
     the same cause (Jer. 2:17). "A city guilty of idolatry was
     looked upon as a cancer in the state; it was considered to be in
     rebellion, and treated according to the laws of war. Its
     inhabitants and all their cattle were put to death." Jehovah was
     the theocratic King of Israel, the civil Head of the
     commonwealth, and therefore to an Israelite idolatry was a state
     offence (1 Sam. 15:23), high treason. On taking possession of
     the land, the Jews were commanded to destroy all traces of every
     kind of the existing idolatry of the Canaanites (Ex. 23:24, 32;
     34:13; Deut. 7:5, 25; 12:1-3).
     
       In the New Testament the term idolatry is used to designate
     covetousness (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13; Col. 3:5; Eph. 5:5).