heathenism

Meaning

Noun

• paganism, heathendom

Origin

• From heathen + -ism, coined in the 17th century in place of the then-obsolete heathendom. First attested in Francis Bacon's Of the advancement of learning (1605), II. xiv. §9: "The heresy of the Anthropomorphites [...] and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in heathenism, who supposed the gods to be in human shape" (OED).