Romanist

[ roh-muh-nist ]

noun

1. Disparaging. a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
2. one versed in Roman institutions, law, etc.
3. Also Ro·man·i·cist [] a person versed in Romance languages, literature, or linguistics.
4. Ro·man·ists, Fine Arts. a group of Flemish and Dutch painters of the 16th century who traveled to Italy and returned to Flanders and Holland with the style and techniques of the High Renaissance and of Mannerism.

Romanist

/ ˈrəʊmənɪst /

noun

1. a member of a Church, esp the Church of England, who favours or is influenced by Roman Catholicism
2. a Roman Catholic
3. a student of classical Roman civilization or law

Derived Forms

• ˌRomanˈistic, adjective

Other Words From

• Ro·man·is·tic adjective
• an·ti-Ro·man·ist noun
• pro-Ro·man·ist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of Romanist¹

From the New Latin word Romanista, dating back to 1515–25. See Roman, -ist

Example Sentences

Burton sees the mimicry of the “arch-deceiver in the strange sacraments, the priests, and the sacrifices,” as the Romanist missionaries to Tibet saw the same diabolical parody of their rites in Buddhist temples.

From Project Gutenberg

If the Roman Catholic would not take the oath of abnegation, which to a sincere Romanist was impossible, he was in effect an outlaw, and the “jury packing” so much complained of to-day in Ireland is one of the habit survivals of the old bad time when Roman Catholics were thus by law excluded from the jury box.

From Project Gutenberg

In the like strain Bernardine à Piconio, most genial and spiritual of Romanist interpreters: “Wide as the furthest limits of the inhabited world, long as the ages of eternity through which God’s love to His people will endure, deep as the abyss of misery and ruin from which He has raised us, high as the throne of Christ in the heavens where He has placed us.”

From Project Gutenberg

You may be a Romanist, but I am a Huguenot, and have read.

From Project Gutenberg

And again: “Among the fair arable lands of England and Belgium extends an orthodox Protestantism or Catholicism—prosperous, creditable and drowsy; but it is among the purple moors of the highland border, the ravines of Mount Genévre, and the crags of the Tyrol, that we shall find the simplest evangelical faith and the purest Romanist practice.”

From Project Gutenberg