a member of a 12th-century sect in S France that rejected the Mass, infant baptism, prayers for the dead, sacerdotalism, the veneration of the cross, and the building of churches.
Origin: 1550–60; < ML petrobrusiānus, named after Petrus Brusius Pierre de Bruys, 12th-century Frenchman who founded the sect; see -an
[pe-troh-broo-zhuh
n, -shuh