English edit

Etymology edit

From Roman +‎ -ism, after Romanist.

Pronunciation edit

  • (file)

Noun edit

Romanism (uncountable)

  1. (chiefly derogatory) The tenets of the Church of Rome; the Roman Catholic religion. [from 17th c.]
    • 1790 August 1, Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana:
      Romanism once extinguished, all other Sects will follow, and that the Catholic Religion—falsely so called—for Catholick means universal—is going, none now will venture to deny.
    • 1866, Gilbert Haven, The Pilgrim's Wallet, page 8:
      Then I saw how a spot no larger than this could be crowded with millions of souls, and yet be apparently uninhabited. Romanism increases the degradation of tenantism, and rum completes it.
    • 1967 December 1, Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith[1], 3rd edition, Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., page 71:
      It appears then that Warfield himself really suggests a better way of expressing such differences as obtain between Romanism and Protestantism, or between universalistic and particularistic Protestantism than he has himself employed.