Word.ws English Dictionary

manism

/ˈmɑːnɪzəm/

manism noun: ancestor-worship.

Noun

manism (uncountable)

  1. ancestor-worship
    • As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man, rather than in God. It is a compound, made up chiefly of manism, with but a little deism, and is as near to atheism as twilight is to darkness.1794, Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
    • It is not he that refused to subscribe, but he that constrains subscription to some manism, or humanism, or opinion, or tradition not taught in the scriptures.1837 May, “Reformers not schismatics”, in The Millennial Harbinger, volume 1, number 5, page 195

Examples of manism in a sentence

  • Now, one of the worst features of Roman Catholicism is its popery, or manism.1885, R. B. Godfrey, The World's Spiritual Conquest Or Its Conversion to Christ:
  • The term manism is derived from the Latin manes, meaning "departed spirits, ghosts, souls of the deceased.1997, Thomas A. Green, Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art:

Origin of manism

From manes (“spirit of the ancestors”) + -ism.

Questions about manism

What does manism mean?
Manism means ancestor-worship.
How do you use manism in a sentence?
Now, one of the worst features of Roman Catholicism is its popery, or manism.
What part of speech is manism?
Manism is a noun.
How do you pronounce manism?
Manism is pronounced /ˈmɑːnɪzəm/.

Words near manism in the dictionary

  1. Maniscalco
  2. Maniscalcos
  3. manises
  4. Manisha
  5. manisided
  6. manism
  7. manist
  8. Manistee
  9. Manistee County
  10. manistic
  11. Manistique

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: manism (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: “manism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/manism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.