Jesuit
Americannoun
-
Jesuits
plural
-
a member of a Roman Catholic religious order Society of Jesus founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1534.
-
(often lowercase) a crafty, intriguing, or equivocating person: so called in allusion to the methods ascribed to the order by its opponents.
adjective
noun
-
a member of a Roman Catholic religious order (the Society of Jesus ) founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola in 1534 with the aims of defending the papacy and Catholicism against the Reformation and to undertake missionary work among the heathen
-
informal (sometimes not capital) a person given to subtle and equivocating arguments; casuist
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of Jesuit
1550–60; < New Latin Jēsuita, equivalent to Latin Jēsu ( s ) + -ita -ite 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Are the women in Vermeer’s light-filled interiors cryptic embodiments of Collegiant doctrine or secularized Jesuit motifs?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
He grew up in Kolkata, moving between a convent school and a prestigious Jesuit boys' school where he first discovered music while cleaning instruments in the music room.
From BBC ● Apr. 17, 2026
Speaking of football jerseys, Hollins also was carrying one from Walsh Jesuit High School bearing the number 84.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 9, 2026
He was the first pope from the Americas, the first from the Jesuit order, and the first to take the name Francis.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 23, 2025
Las Casas’s successors usually shared his ideas—the eighteenth- century Jesuit Francisco Javier Clavijero, for example, asserted that the pre-Columbian population of Mexico alone was thirty million.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Yet Mr. Weber showed that Dutch Jesuits deployed the camera obscura as a metaphor in devotional literature and sermons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
Jesuits in Britain said they made the "difficult decision" to evict Mr Renwick in 2021 after "many attempts to engage with him".
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2025
He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of St Peter - Jesuits were historically looked on with suspicion by Rome.
From BBC ● Apr. 21, 2025
A diligent student, he studied to be a chemist in college but decided instead to join the Jesuits, the highly intellectual order known for its focus on education and its engagement with gritty real-world situations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 21, 2025
“DePaul would be perfect. This is what the Jesuits are known for. Or, if he didn’t like it there, go for the University of Illinois,” she counseled.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
