Word.ws English Dictionary

eisegesis

UK/aɪsɪˈdʒiːsɪs/US/aɪsɪˈd͡ʒisɪs/

eisegesis noun: an interpretation, especially of Scripture, that reflects the personal ideas or viewpoint of the interpreter; reading something into a text that is not there.

Noun

eisegesis (countable and uncountable, plural eisegeses)

  1. An interpretation, especially of Scripture, that reflects the personal ideas or viewpoint of the interpreter; reading something into a text that is not there.
    • For the benefit of readers who may have been influenced by certain eisegeses of MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948), let us here emphasize: Whether or not an interpretation of a test's properties or relations involves questions of construct validity is to be decided by examining the entire body of...1973, Paul Everett Meehl, Psychodiagnosis: Selected Papers, page 7
    • To be sure, there are those who are more sophisticated in their dogmatic eisegeses, but the offense is not thereby lessened.1984, Kelly Miller Smith, Social Crisis Preaching: The Lyman Beecher Lectures, 1983

Forms of eisegesis

pluraleisegeses

Origin of eisegesis

From Ancient Greek εἰς (eis, “into”) and English exegesis. Historically unrelated to the Ancient Greek εἰσήγησις (eisḗgēsis, “proposing, advising”).

Questions about eisegesis

What does eisegesis mean?
Eisegesis means an interpretation, especially of Scripture, that reflects the personal ideas or viewpoint of the interpreter; reading something into a text that is not there.
What part of speech is eisegesis?
Eisegesis is a noun.
How do you pronounce eisegesis?
Eisegesis is pronounced /aɪsɪˈdʒiːsɪs/ (UK).
What is the plural of eisegesis?
The plural of eisegesis is eisegeses.

Words near eisegesis in the dictionary

  1. Eisch
  2. Eischen
  3. Eischens
  4. Eischenses
  5. eisegeses
  6. eisegesis
  7. eisegesistic
  8. eisegete
  9. eisegeted
  10. eisegetes
  11. eisegetic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eisegesis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “eisegesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eisegesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.