Word.ws English Dictionary

proselyte

/ˈpɹɒsəlaɪt/US/ˈpɹɑsəˌlaɪt/

proselyte noun: one who has converted to a religion or doctrine, especially a gentile converted to Judaism.

Noun

proselyte (plural proselytes)

  1. One who has converted to a religion or doctrine, especially a gentile converted to Judaism.
    • Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 23:15
    • That evening the young nun lay exhausted between life and death in a brain fever, while all Naples was ringing with the faith, beauty, and fervour of the English proselyte.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter X, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 218

Verb

proselyte (third-person singular simple present proselytes, present participle proselyting, simple past and past participle proselyted)

  1. (transitive) To proselytize.

proselyte meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

proselyte in Tamil

மதம் மாற்றம் செய், மதம் மாறி, கொள்கை மாறி, கொள்கை, மதம் முதலியவற்றை மாற்றிக் கொள்பவர்

proselyte in Urdu

مرید

proselyte in Bengali

ধর্মান্তরিত ব্যক্তি, নতুন অনুসারী

proselyte in Malayalam

new believer, convert, catechumen
മതം മാറിയവൻ, പുതുതായി ഒരു മതത്തിൽ ചേർന്നവൻ, പുതുതായി മതപരിവർത്തനം ചെയ്തയാൾ, മതപരിത്തനം ചെയ്യപ്പെട്ടവൻ, പുതുവിശ്വാസി, മാർഗ്ഗക്കാരൻ
More languagesFewer languages
proselyte in Kannada
ಮತಾಂತರ ಹೊಂದಿದವನು, ಮತಾಂತರಿ

Forms of proselyte

Noun
pluralproselytes
Verb
third-person singular presentproselytes
present participleproselyting
past participleproselyted
pastproselyted

Origin of proselyte

From Old French proselite, from Late Latin proselytus (“proselyte, alien resident”), from Ancient Greek προσήλυτος (prosḗlutos, “newcomer, convert”) (from πρός (prós, “to, towards”) and the stem -ηλυ- of ἐλήλυθα (elḗlutha), perfect of ἔρχομαι (érkhomai, “come”)), translation of Hebrew גר (ger) in the Septuagint translation of the Torah (e.g., Exodus 12:49); also used in Matthew 23:15, Acts 2:10, Acts 6:5.

Words formed from proselyte

Questions about proselyte

What does proselyte mean?
Proselyte means one who has converted to a religion or doctrine, especially a gentile converted to Judaism.
What is proselyte in Tamil?
Proselyte in Tamil is மதம் மாற்றம் செய், மதம் மாறி, கொள்கை மாறி. See Proselyte meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is proselyte?
Proselyte can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce proselyte?
Proselyte is pronounced /ˈpɹɒsəlaɪt/ (UK).
What is the plural of proselyte?
The plural of proselyte is proselytes.

Words near proselyte in the dictionary

  1. prosed
  2. prosegment
  3. prosegments
  4. prosegregation
  5. proselike
  6. proselyte
  7. proselyte of the gate
  8. proselyted
  9. proselyter
  10. proselyters
  11. proselytes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: proselyte (page history and authors); proselyte (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proselyte (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proselyte (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); proselyte (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); proselyte (Kannada Wiktionary) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-proselyte.wav.

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