RECUSANT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Recusant

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Recusant n.

One who is obstinate in refusal; one standing out stubbornly against general practice or opinion. "The last rebellious recusants among the European family of nations."

(Eng. Hist.) A person who refuses to acknowledge the supremacy of the king in matters of religion; as, a Roman Catholic recusant, who acknowledges the supremacy of the pope.

One who refuses communion with the Church of England; a nonconformist. "All that are recusants of holy rites."

adjective

Recusant adj. Obstinate in refusal; specifically, in English history, refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of the king in the churc, or to conform to the established rites of the church; as, a recusant lord. "It stated him to have placed his son in the household of the Countess of Derby, a recusant papist."

See images of 'Recusant'

Etymology of 'Recusant'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Recusant" Quotes from Famous Books

... pictures, and rooms of ornaments; the leaving a house we have so long called our home is altogether melancholy enough. I am glad Lady S. does not mind it, and yet I wonder, too. She insists on my remaining till Wednesday, not knowing what I suffer. Meanwhile, to make my recusant spirit do penance, I have set to work to clear away papers and pack them for my journey. What a strange medley of thoughts such a task produces! There lie letters which made the heart throb when received, now lifeless and uninteresting—as are perhaps their ...

— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... Mac Cormac, king of the Deisi, with his army and followers, met one another at Indeoin and they made still more strong on the people the bond of Christian obligation. The king we have already mentioned, scil.:—Ledban, the recusant to the Christian name, was rejected of all and he came to nothing, leaving no knowledge (memory) of his history, as is written of the enemies of the faith:—"Their memory perisheth like a sound" [Psalm 9:7]. Moreover Declan and Fergal ...

— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous

... was searched and his papers examined in his absence; and the result, though inconclusive, was unsatisfactory.[389] The religious orders again (especially the monks of such houses as had been implicated with the Nun of Kent) were openly recusant. At the convent at Sion, near Richmond, a certain Father Ricot preached as he was commanded, "but he made this addition, that he which commanded him to preach should discharge his conscience: and as soon," it was said, "as ...

— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude