religionn.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman religioun, religiun, Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French religion (French religion ) system of beliefs and practices based on belief in, or acknowledgement of, some superhuman power or powers, also any particular such system (both first half of the 12th cent. in Anglo-Norman, originally in commune religion , translating post-classical Latin catholica religio ; the figurative use in sense 4b is apparently not paralleled in French until later (c1810)), monastery (c1130 in Anglo-Norman), religious house (1139 in Anglo-Norman), action or conduct indicating belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power, piety, devotion (c1145), state of life bound by religious vows (c1150), scrupulousness, conscientiousness (c1210), religious order (end of the 13th cent. or earlier in Anglo-Norman), (specifically) Protestantism (1533 in ceulx de la religion the Protestants, lit. ‘those of the religion’) and its etymon classical Latin religiōn-, religiō supernatural feeling of constraint, usually having the force of a prohibition or impediment, that which is prohibited, taboo, positive obligation, rule, impediment to action proceeding from religious awe or conscience, scruple, manifestation of divine sanction, religious fear, awe, religious feeling, superstition, quality evoking awe or reverence, sanctity, religious observance, religious practice, ritual, particular system of religious observance, cult, conscientiousness, in post-classical Latin also monastic community (8th cent.), religious order, rule observed by a religious order (12th cent.) < re- re- prefix + a second element of uncertain origin; by Cicero connected with relegere to read over again (see relection n.), so that the supposed original sense of ‘religion’ would have been ‘painstaking observance of rites’, but by later authors (especially by early Christian writers) with religāre religate v., ‘religion’ being taken as ‘that which ties believers to God’. Each view finds supporters among modern scholars.Compare Old Occitan religio (late 12th cent., earliest in sense ‘religious order’), Catalan religió (13th cent.), Spanish religión (end of the 12th cent.), Portuguese religião (13th cent.), Italian religione (second half of the 13th cent.). The Latin word was also borrowed into other Germanic languages: compare Middle Dutch, Dutch †religioen state of life bound by religious vows, religie system of faith and worship, belief in superhuman powers, etc., Middle Low German religiōn, religie, German Religion (early 16th cent.), Swedish religion (1539), Danish religion (16th cent.).