[f. ETHNIC + -ISM.] † a. Heathenism, paganism; heathenish superstition; an instance of this (obs.). b. In mod. use without reproachful implication: The religions of the Gentile nations of antiquity; the common characteristics of these as contrasted with Hebraism and Christianity.
1600. Abp. Abbot, Exp. Jonah, 77. Many who liue not in Ethnicisme or Barbarisme, but in a ciuill nation, in the cleare light of the Gospell.
1613. Purchas, Pilgr., IX. v. § 3 (1617), 1042 (R.). Certaine Brasilians … had set vp a new Sect of Christian Ethnicisme, or Mungrell-Christianity.
1625. T. Jackson, Orig. Unbeliefe, xxiii. 226. Feigned relations of a new starres appearance or other like Ethnicismes.
1667. Waterhouse, Fire Lond., 111. In darkness of errour, and in the shadow of death through Ethnicism.
1849. trans. Nitzsch’s Chr. Doctr., Pref. p vii. The two great directions of religio-historical development, Ethnicism and Revelation.
1851. Carlyle, Sterling, I. ix. (1871), 54. A mind … occupied … with mere Ethnicism, Radicalism and revolutionary tumult.
