Unitarianadj.n.
/ˌjuːnᵻˈtɛːrɪən/, U.S. /ˌjunəˈtɛriən/ A. adj.† 1. Having the same value; identical. Obsolete. rare.† 6. Chemistry. = unitary adj. 5b. Obsolete. rare.
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1679 S. Morland Doctr. Interest iv. 102 It is no less observable, That an Annuity of 100l. increases by a Trigonal Progression of the respective Rates. But the Present Worth increases by an Unitarian Addition of the Rate to the Principal for each year respectively.
2. Theology.
a. Of, relating to, or connected with, the Unitarians or their doctrines; characteristic of Unitarianism.
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society > faith > sect > Christianity > Protestantism > Unitarianism > [adjective]
Unitarian1680
Unitarianized1827
non-Trinitarian1840
1680 Two Lett. Holy Trinity 8 And this Unitarian System little differs from the Trinitarian.
1691 W. Nicholls Answer Naked Gospel 101 Whilst Faustus kept close in Italy, the Unitarian Cause was carried on by others.
1706 T. Emlyn (title) A vindication of the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, on Unitarian principles.
1782 J. Priestley Hist. Corruptions Christianity I. i. 8 What could this be but the proper unitarian doctrine?
1824 H. W. Longfellow in S. Longfellow Life H. W. Longfellow (1891) I. v. 52 Our little Unitarian Society at Bowdoin.
1889 Church Q. Rev. Apr. 35 The Unitarian conception of our Lord's Person and Office.
1957 M. Bernstein in H. Goldberg Amer. Radicals i. 23 Henry Grafton Chapman had been a church-outed minister of the Unitarian church because of its lethargy in speaking against slavery.
2005 J. D. Witvliet in L. Van Dyk More Profound Alleluia 7 In Deist or Unitarian theology, Jesus Christ, while still viewed as a key teacher,..is not viewed on a par with God.
b. Of a person: that accepts, professes, or advocates the doctrines of Unitarianism; belonging to a religious body or sect of Unitarians.
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c1680 Two Lett. Holy Trinity 13 There have always been some Unitarian Christians in Asia.
1691 W. Nicholls Answer Naked Gospel 96 The most remarkable of this sort of Unitarian Hereticks.
?1765 W. Hopkins (title) An attempt to restore scripture forms of worship; or, A friendly dialogue between a common Unitarian Christian, converted by some late writings, and an Athanasian.
1793 A. Kippis Biogr. Brit. (ed. 2) V. 596 Dr. Bennet..laid himself open to the strictures both of Trinitarian and Unitarian Divines.
1815 W. J. Fox Reply Pop. Objections Unitarianism 38 The general character of Unitarian professors and converts.
1876 H. R. F. Bourne Life J. Locke II. xii. 240 Thomas Firmin..the excellent unitarian merchant.
1953 R. V. Hine California's Utopian Colonies (1983) v. 85 The eldest son of a dissenting Unitarian family, Winser had been ‘pondering the anomalies of society’.
1996 J. C. Oates We were Mulvaneys 201 Next, a ‘moment of silence’ presided over by a local Unitarian minister.
c. Of or relating to non-Christian (esp. Muslim) monotheism; spec. of an advocate of or believer in the doctrine of the Unity of Being (see sense B. 1b). Now rare.
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1842 St. Petersburg Eng. Rev. 3 157 The unitarian creed and simple ritual of Islam offended the prejudices of the Jew much less.
1900 Amer. Jrnl. Semitic Langs. & Lit. 16 142 The intensity of this unitarian belief is illustrated in the name given to the polytheistic pagans of the Koran age and later times.
2004 A. C. Paterson Anal. & Brief Hist. Three Great Monotheistic Faiths iii. 143 Some Sufi writings seem to reject the strict unitarian monotheism of traditional Islam.
3. Advocating, promoting, or directed towards national unity, union, or centralization in government or administration.
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society > authority > rule or government > politics > political philosophy > principles of or attachment to types of government > [adjective] > relating to or supporting federalism or union
federalist1794
federalizing1800
Unitarian1816
unionist1825
unionistic1840
federalistic1844
federationist1978
1816 tr. D. G. F. de Pradt Congr. Vienna xvii. 123 The number of Unitarian Italians are too great not to be an object of alarm.
1877 Academy 10 Nov. 1/1 The unitarian movement of twenty years later differed..from the revolution which enthroned the triumvirate at Rome.
1910 W. A. Hirst Argentina x. 111 The authorities spared no effort in planning and building a magnificent city which should be..a standing protest against Unitarian theory.
1945 R. Coupland India iii. vi. 161 Provincial autonomy and responsible parliamentary government..had both been violated by the unitarian policy of the Congress ‘Centre’.
1964 J. A. Thayer Italy & Great War ii. 29 As if panicked by events in Sicily, the old Garibaldian called for a great unitarian party.
2003 R. Clark Catholic Iconography Novels J. Marsé iii. 80 In Catalonia, however, sections of the Church would be actively engaged in promoting Catalan nationalism in defiance of Francoist unitarian policy.
4. Of, relating to, or advocating the theory that the Iliad and the Odyssey are the work of a single person. Cf. sense B. 4.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > literary and textual criticism > textual criticism > [adjective] > relating to or holding specific authorship theory
Unitarian1842
Baconian1874
chorizontic1875
chorizontal1887
Stratfordian1908
Oxfordian1930
1842 Encycl. Brit. XI. 543/1 If the fact of his personal existence were admitted to the fullest extent desired by his unitarian admirers, the material question..would still remain.
1865 N. Brit. Rev. June 277 Even on the more special question of the origin of the Homeric poems,..we may safely say that no scholar will again find himself able to embrace the unitarian hypothesis.
1879 Macmillan's Mag. Feb. 314/1 In the September number of this magazine I have discussed the conservative and unitarian theories still maintained concerning Homer.
1963 Arion Autumn 86 This permits the Unitarian critic to feel that once he has pointed out how unconvincing a particular analyst's theory is,..his battle is won.
2001 J. S. Burgess Trad. Trojan War ii. 49 Most scholars now take a unitarian approach to the Homeric poems.
5. Of an (esp. philosophical) system or theory: relating to, based on, or characterized by unity; unitary; monistic.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > ontology > [adjective] > of branches of > monistic
unitary?1790
Unitarian1845
monistic1860
monistical1890
monist1916
1845 J. R. Lowell Lett. (1894) I. 102 My system is fully as unitarian as your own.
1875 Encycl. Brit. I. 460/2 These two theories, the one dualistic, the other unitarian, strangely foreshadow the discoveries of modern dynamics.
1892 W. A. Ellis tr. R. Wagner Prose Wks. I. 52 The great unitarian Art-work of Greece could not at once reveal itself to our bewildered, wandering, piecemeal minds in all its fulness.
1979 J. C. Nieto Mystic, Rebel, Saint vi. 119 The mystic refers to his experience in unitarian and absolute terms, while non-mystics refer to their experiences in pluralistic and relativistic terms.
1992 Lit. & Ling. Computing 7 70/2 In all text there is a global unitarian meaning, i.e. one global, definitely defined and definable architecture of thoughts.
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the world > relative properties > number > specific numbers > one > unity or undividedness > [adjective]
unitary1822
Unitarian1893
1893 19th Cent. Aug. 249 Under the unitarian system we no longer divide the molecule.
B. n.† 5. An advocate of the unitary system of chemical notation (see unitary adj. 5b). Obsolete. rare.
1. Theology.
a. A person who asserts or emphasizes the unipersonality of God and rejects the Nicene formulation of three coequal persons (cf. Nicene adj.; Trinitarian n. 2).In later use Unitarian generally refers to a member of a denomination which affirms Christ's moral authority while denying his divinity, and rejects formal dogma in favour of a rationalist and inclusivist approach to belief.
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society > faith > sect > Christianity > Protestantism > Unitarianism > [noun] > person
Trinitary1561
Trinitarian1565
Unitarian1687
Biddelian1780
unicist1832
1687 S. Nye Brief Hist. Unitarians 117 The Unitarians, vulgarly called Socinians.
1697 E. Stillingfleet Disc. Trinity 22 Our Vnitarians own the Ebionites as their Predecessors.
1706 T. Emlyn Vindic. Worship Christ 1/1 Mr. B. flatters himself upon this head, as tho he had quite baffled the Cause of the Unitarians.
1782 J. Priestley Hist. Corruptions Christianity I. i. 8 Eusebius [had] prejudice against the unitarians of his own time.
?c1795 Strange & Wonderful Predict. C. Love (new ed.) 73 An Answer to Doctor Priestly, And all other Deistical Unitarians, who deny Christ's Divinity; By a Christian Unitarian, who believes in Christ's Divinity.
1837 H. Martineau Society in Amer. III. 279 The Unitarians, the religious body with which I am best acquainted.
1889 Church Q. Rev. Apr. 35 We may roughly state these three conceptions [of Christianity] as (1) the Unitarian, which conceives of Christ as an exhalted human teacher merely; (2) the Protestant,..(3) the Catholic.
1912 W. Hirsch Relig. & Civilization xi. 507 Modern Unitarians are pure humanitarians, in their estimation Christ being an ordinary human being.
1960 F. O'Connor Let. 19 Nov. (1979) 418 I thought you had told me she was of an agnostic persuasion, so I was expecting a Unitarian or some pious liberal fraud.
1997 N. Walter Humanism 39 The Unitarians who emphasised the humanity of Jesus were attempting to rescue religion from the superhuman errors of Trinitarianism.
b. A non-Christian (esp. Islamic) monotheist. spec. an advocate of or believer in the doctrine of the Unity of Being, according to which there can be no independent existence apart from God.
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society > faith > sect > non-Christian religions > Islam > [noun] > person
Saracenc893
Mahomet1508
Mahometista1513
Mahometan1529
Turk1548
Mahomite1559
Mussulman1570
Ismaelite1571
Mahometician1588
Moor1588
Islam1613
Muslim1626
Mahometant1635
Mohammedan1663
Moorman1696
Unitarian1708
Islamite1786
Muslimin1819
Muslimite1840
Islamist1849
1708 S. Ockley Conquest of Syria 227 Abu Obeidah sent Abdo'llah Ebn Kort with an Express to Omar..begging his Prayers, and some fresh Recruits of Vnitarians, a Title they glory in, reckoning themselves the only Asserters of the Unity of the Deity.
1723 W. Nicholls Conf. with Theist (ed. 3) I. ii. 169 Socrates having Suffered for an Unitarian, and deriding the Gentile Multitude of Gods.
1788 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall VI. lix. 105 His preachers..called aloud on the unitarians, manfully to stand up against the Christian idolaters.
1819 W. J. Fox Course of Lect. iv. 114 Different classes of Unitarians, who are out of the pale of Christianity... The wisest and best philosophers of Greece and Rome... The Jews... The disciples of Mohomet.
1850 13th Ann. Rep. Board of Foreign Missions Presbyterian Church U.S.A. 51 The Jews are all Unitarians in their belief.
1909 G. K. Chesterton Orthodoxy viii. 249 The real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world.
1935 H. A. L. Fisher Hist. Europe xxxi. 368 The Almohades (Unitarians) of the Atlas mountains were even fiercer and more intolerant than the Berber tribes.
1997 E. Isichei Hist. Afr. Societies xi. 189 All Muslims are unitarians.
2. An advocate of national or political unity; a person who supports the union of several states into one confederation under a central government (e.g. in Italy or Argentina).
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society > authority > rule or government > politics > political philosophy > principles of or attachment to types of government > [noun] > federalism > union or unification > adherent of
Unitarian1800
unionist1814
consolidationist1883
1800 New Ann. Reg. 1799 Brit. & Foreign Hist. 317/1 [The patriots in Italy] took the name of Unitarians, the denomination given to those who were anxious for..a more uniform system in the government.
1865 Cornhill Mag. Aug. 249 As a unitarian and partisan of centralization he [sc. Dante] hurled anathemas at all autonomous cities and provinces.
1884 P. Schaff et al. Relig. Encycl. III. 2422/2 There is also a political party in Buenos Ayres..devoted to centralization in government, called Unitarians.
1934 D. G. Larg Giuseppe Garibaldi 328 Two parties, the Federalists and the Unitarians, representing respectively the gauchos of the pampas and the inhabitants of the cities.
2005 W. D. Mignolo Idea of Lat. Amer. ii. 67 The parties took many names, such as federalists and unitarians, federalists and centralists, conservatives and liberals.
3. An advocate of a philosophical theory or system based on unity; = monist n. Also figurative.
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the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > metaphysics > ontology > [noun] > monism > adherent of
Unitarian1830
monista1856
neutral monist1914
1830 Edinb. Rev. Oct. 207 The unitarian—whether materialist, idealist, or absolutist—has only to reply..that the object known is universally identical with the subject knowing.
1847 R. W. Emerson Poems 179 The old men studied magic in the flower,..Preferring things to names, for these were men, Were unitarians of the united world.
a1856 W. Hamilton Lect. Metaphysics (1859) I. xvi. 295 The Realists or Substantialists are again divided into Dualists, and into Unitarians or Monists.
1925 Proc. Aristotelian Soc. New Ser. 26 1 To classify and range philosophers as being either Monists or Pluralists or, as I would venture to designate them, Unitarians and Multitudinarians.
2004 Jrnl. Philos. 101 560 Disunitarians and unitarians alike seem to regard token physicalism as innocuous.
4. A person who ascribes the Iliad and the Odyssey to the same author. Cf. separatist n. 1f, chorizontes n.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > literary and textual criticism > textual criticism > [noun] > literary origin of text > specific authorship theory > one who holds
Unitarian1850
chorizontes1868
chorizontist1873
Baconian1874
Shakespearean1874
separatist1903
Stratfordian1908
Shakespearite1909
Oxfordian1930
1850 London Q. Rev. Oct. 253/1 We, as Unitarians, should lose an important outwork, and our belief that the Poems were not only composed by one man, but by him written, would be shaken.
1907 W. C. Wright Short Hist. Greek Lit. 31 Time, which makes all heresies orthodox, has suppressed the Unitarians in their turn, and all scholars are now Chorizontes.
1959 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Mar. 138/4 Any Unitarian must depend very largely on demonstrating some recognizable pattern or design in the Homeric poems as evidence of single authorship.
1997 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 20 Nov. 44/3 The opponents of Analysis, called the Unitarians, tried to demonstrate the integrity of the texts as they stand.
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1865 C. B. Mansfield Theory of Salts 254 A compound, which even by the unitarians, must be called a double salt.
1893 Nineteenth Cent. Aug. 249 Under the unitarian system we no longer subdivide the molecule of sulphuric acid..; we simply consider it as consisting of its seven atoms.
6. Immunology. An opponent of the theory that a toxin consists of several components with different affinities for antitoxin (cf. prototoxin n. 1, deuterotoxin n. at deutero- comb. form , tritotoxin n. at trito- comb. form 1). rare. Now disused.
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1904 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 10 Sept. 572/2 In this toxin-antitoxin discussion there has been a tendency to ascribe to us the position of ‘unitarians’ in contradistinction to the ‘pluralist’.
Compounds
Unitarian Universalism n. a religious movement originally combining the beliefs of Unitarianism and Universalism; now spec. a prominent grouping of Unitarians in the United States, formed by the merger in 1961 of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America; see Unitarianism n. 1, universalism n. 1.
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1824 Gospel Inquirer 17 July 11/3 Consider if the reformation from Popery could plead any thing in recommendation which cannot be reiterated on behalf of Unitarian Universalism.
1920 M. E. Templeton Our Denominational Mothers in 1920 72 Liberal thought..has permeated all religion so largely that we may assert in quite positive accents, that Mother Unitarian Universalism has given birth to a considerable offspring.
1988 Standard Nov. 57/3 High on the list of similarities is the unusually high level of education among Unitarian Universalists ( uus), making education the ‘single most important predictor of a person's affinity for Unitarian Universalism’.
1997 Resource Packet for Neo-paganism & Witchcraft 69 In 1995 the association adopted a new source of spiritual inspiration, affirming the contributions of earth-centered spirituality in Unitarian Universalism.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2015; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1679