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Jesuit

 - 3 dictionary results

Jes⋅u⋅it

  [jezh-oo-it, jez-oo-, jez-yoo-]
–noun
1. a member of a Roman Catholic religious order (Society of Jesus) founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534.
2. (often lowercase) a crafty, intriguing, or equivocating person: so called in allusion to the methods ascribed to the order by its opponents.
–adjective
3. of or pertaining to Jesuits or Jesuitism.
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Origin:
1550–60; < NL Jēsuita, equiv. to L Jēsu(s) + -ita -ite 1
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
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Jes·u·it   (jězh'ōō-ĭt, jěz'ōō-, -yōō-)   
n.  

  1. Roman Catholic Church A member of the Society of Jesus.

  2. often jesuit One given to subtle casuistry.


[French Jésuite, from Jésus, Jesus, from Late Latin Iēsus; see Jesus1.]
Jes'u·it'i·cal adj., Jes'u·it'i·cal·ly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

Jesuit 
1550, from Mod.L. Jesuita, member of the Society of Jesus, founded 1533 by Ignatius Loyola to combat Protestantism. Their enemies (in both Catholic and Protestant lands) accused them of belief that ends justify means, hence the sense "a dissembling person" (1640), and jesuitical "deceitful" (1613).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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