Word.ws English Dictionary

Pharisees

Pharisees is the plural of Pharisee.

Meaning of Pharisee

Noun

Pharisee (plural Pharisees)

  1. (historical) A member of an ancient Jewish political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews that flourished during the Second Temple Era (536 B.C.E.–70 C.E.). The movement was ultimately the basis for most contemporary forms of Judaism.
    • Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC
  2. (broadly, derogatory, figuratively) A person who values the letter of the law over its spirit or intention.
    • He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], “chapter III”, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC

Questions about Pharisees

What is Pharisees the plural of?
Pharisees is the plural of Pharisee.

Words near Pharisees in the dictionary

  1. Phariseans
  2. Pharisee
  3. Pharisee-like
  4. Phariseeism
  5. Phariseeisms
  6. Pharisees
  7. Pharisæan
  8. Pharisæans
  9. pharm
  10. Pharm.
  11. Pharm.D.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Pharisees (page history and authors); Pharisee (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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