Also Yeze(e)dee, Izedi, Zezidee. [Of disputed origin.] One of a religious sect found in Kurdistan, Armenia, and the Caucasus, which, while believing in a Supreme God, regards the Devil with reverential fear.
1818. Kinneir, Journ. Asia Minor, 414. The Zezidees live in enmity with the Christians.
1819. T. Hope, Anastasius (1820), III. 114. The strangers were Yezidees.
1842. J. B. Fraser, Mesop. & Assyria, xiv. 328. The Yezidee religion appears to be a compound of many others strangely jumbled together.
1848. Layard (title), Nineveh and its Remains: with an Account of … the Yezidis, or Devil-Worshippers.
1852. Badger, Nestor., I. x. 112. I think it cannot be doubted that the term ‘Yezeedee’ is derived from Yezd, one of the titles applied by the ancient Persians to the Supreme Being.
1871. Tylor, Prim. Cult., II. xvii. 299. The Izedis or Yezidis, the so-called Devil-worshippers.
