Word.ws English Dictionary

Sebastianism

Sebastianism noun: the folkloric belief that King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578) will return from the dead to lead the Portuguese or Brazilian people as a messiah.

Noun

Sebastianism (uncountable)

  1. The folkloric belief that King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578) will return from the dead to lead the Portuguese or Brazilian people as a messiah.
    • Sebastianism kept alive the spirit of independence in a country now brought under the sovereignty of the Spanish Crown.1992, Edwin Williamson, The Penguin history of Latin America, London; New York: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 72

Origin of Sebastianism

Borrowed from Portuguese sebastianismo. By surface analysis, Sebastian + ism.

Questions about Sebastianism

What does Sebastianism mean?
Sebastianism means the folkloric belief that King Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578) will return from the dead to lead the Portuguese or Brazilian people as a messiah.
What part of speech is Sebastianism?
Sebastianism is a noun.

Words near Sebastianism in the dictionary

  1. Sebago Lake
  2. sebamide
  3. Sebastia
  4. Sebastian
  5. Sebastian County
  6. Sebastianism
  7. Sebastianist
  8. Sebastianists
  9. sebastid
  10. sebastids
  11. Sebastion

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Sebastianism (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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