JESUIT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Jesuit

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/dʒˈɛʒuɪt/ Listen

noun

Jesuit n.

(R. C. Ch.) One of a religious order founded by Ignatius Loyola, and approved in 1540, under the title of The Society of Jesus. Note: The order consists of Scholastics, the Professed, the Spiritual Coadjutors, and the Temporal Coadjutors or Lay Brothers. The Jesuit novice after two years becomes a Scholastic, and takes his first vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience simply. Some years after, at the close of a second novitiate, he takes his second vows and is ranked among the Coadjutors or Professed. The Professed are bound by a fourth vow, from which only the pope can dispense, requiring them to go wherever the pope may send them for missionary duty. The Coadjutors teach in the schools, and are employed in general missionary labors. The Society is governed by a General who holds office for life. He has associated with him "Assistants" (five at the present time), representing different provinces. The Society was first established in the United States in 1807. The Jesuits have displayed in their enterprises a high degree of zeal, learning, and skill, but, by their enemies, have been generally reputed to use art and intrigue in promoting or accomplishing their purposes, whence the words Jesuit, Jesuitical, and the like, have acquired an opprobrious sense.

Fig.: A crafty person; an intriguer.

Jesuits' bark, Peruvian bark, or the bark of certain species of Cinchona; so called because its medicinal properties were first made known in Europe by Jesuit missionaries to South America.

Jesuits' drops. See Friar's balsam, under Friar.

Jesuits' nut, the European water chestnut.

Jesuits' powder, powdered cinchona bark.

Jesuits' tea, a Chilian leguminous shrub, used as a tea and medicinally.

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Etymology of 'Jesuit'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Jesuit" Quotes from Famous Books

... whose inhabitants are neither Chinese nor Japanese, but appear to be of both races, and sighted Hoa-pinsu and Tiaoy-su Islands. The latter form part of the Liken Archipelago, known only through the letters of Father Goubil, a Jesuit. ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... given him by Jesuit missionaries in China; his real name was K'ung-foo-tseu. He was born about 550 B.C., in the province of Loo, and was the contemporary of Belshazzar, of Cyrus, of Croesus, and of Pisistratus. It is claimed that Confucius ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... Towards the end of the 15th century a certain demented writer attempted to prove that women do not even deserve the title of reasonable creatures, which in the original sounds oddly enough, namely, probare nititur mulieres non homines esse. Another, a very learned Jesuit, endeavoured to demonstrate that women have no souls! Some say that women surpass us in wickedness; others, that they are both worse ...

— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... the edifying letters of this missionary jesuit, it is difficult to make such distant ends meet. It almost requires a copula like that of the fool, who, to reconcile his lord's assertion that he had with a single bullet shot a deer in the ear and the hind foot, explained ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various

... the world, visiting a place like Cintra, where there was no literature, science, nor anything of utility (coisa que presta). I suspect that there was some covert satire in the last speech of the worthy priest; I was, however, Jesuit enough to appear to receive it as a high compliment, and, taking off my hat, departed with ...

— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

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