paynim
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Anglo-Norman paienime, peinime et al., and (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French paienime, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Late Latin paganismus (“paganism”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin paganus (“pagan”).
Pronunciation
Noun
paynim (plural paynims)
- (archaic) A pagan or heathen, especially a Muslim, or a Jew.
- 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xxxviij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book IX::
- But there was one knyght that dyd merueyllously thre dayes / and he bare a black shelde / and of alle knyghtes that euer I sawe he preued the best knyȝt / thenne said Kyng mark that was syre launcelot or syre palomydes the paynym
- 1530, Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, Preface to the Christian reader :
- And if it be idolatry to do as the paynims did—make an idol “God”—it must needs be much worse idolatry to do as these heretics do,
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.3:
- To this his native soyle thou backe shalt bring, / Strongly to ayde his countrey to withstand / The powre of forreine Paynims which invade thy land.
- 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I | 763-6:
- (Though like a covered field, where champions bold / Wont ride in armed, and at the soldan's chair / Defied the best of paynim chivalry / To mortal combat, or career with lance).
- 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:
- St Helen’s bell rang reminders that she lived, a paynim or Mahometan, in the church’s shadow.