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Gadarene swine

Gadarene swine noun: a herd of swine that become possessed by demons after the latter are exorcised from men, in a parable told in each of the Synoptic Gospels, although not the Gospel of John.

Noun

Gadarene swine pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) A herd of swine that become possessed by demons after the latter are exorcised from men, in a parable told in each of the Synoptic Gospels, although not the Gospel of John.
    • 2000 [1908, Weiser Books], R. Campbell Thompson, Semitic Magic: Its Origins and Development, Red Wheel/Weiser, page 208,
      The most remarkable parallel to this spell is contained in the New Testament story of the Gadarene swine.
    • In fact, Hamsun now completes his allusion to the story of the Gadarene swine alluded to by Pauline in the previous novel. That the reader is expected to recall the Biblical story is quite evident from one simple fact: the number of sheep, according to August's rough reckoning, is "over two...2005, Sverre Lyngstad, Knut Hamsun, Novelist: A Critical Assessment, Peter Lang, page 294

Examples of Gadarene swine in a sentence

  • In fact, Hamsun now completes his allusion to the story of the Gadarene swine alluded to by Pauline in the previous novel.2005, Sverre Lyngstad, Knut Hamsun, Novelist: A Critical Assessment, Peter Lang, page 294:
  • In The Master of Petersburg, however, Coetzee applies the story of the Gadarene swine not only to Russia and the phenomenon of revolutionary nihilism but also to the character Dostoevsky himself.2006, Michael Marais, “4: Death and the Space of the Response to the Other in J. M. Coetzee's Master of Petersburg”, in Jane Poyner...

Questions about Gadarene swine

What does Gadarene swine mean?
Gadarene swine means a herd of swine that become possessed by demons after the latter are exorcised from men, in a parable told in each of the Synoptic Gospels, although not the Gospel of John.
How do you use Gadarene swine in a sentence?
In fact, Hamsun now completes his allusion to the story of the Gadarene swine alluded to by Pauline in the previous novel.
What part of speech is Gadarene swine?
Gadarene swine is a noun.

Words near Gadarene swine in the dictionary

  1. Gadamis
  2. Gadang
  3. Gadara
  4. Gadarean
  5. Gadarene
  6. Gadarene swine
  7. Gadaria
  8. Gadariya
  9. gadas
  10. gadbee
  11. gadbees

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Gadarene swine (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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