a. and sb. Also 8 Zoroastran. [f. L. Zōroastrēs, a. Gr. Ζωροάστρης, ad. Zend Zarathustra (Pers. Zardusht): see -IAN.] A. adj. Of or pertaining to Zoroaster or his religious system, which is mainly dualistic.
1743. Warburton, Pope’s Ess. Man, II. 81, note. This dangerous school-opinion gives great support to the Manichean or Zoroastran error.
1795. T. Maurice, Hindostan (1820), II. IV. iii. 249. The … heresy of Manes, which was compounded out of the ancient Zoroastrian or Magian superstition, and certain perverted doctrines of Christianity.
1892. Westcott, Gospel of Life, 172. There appears to be a distinct polemical element in the earliest Zoroastrian Hymns.
1903. Times, 5 March, 3/5. On no previous occasion has any one been received from Christianity into the Zoroastrian faith.
B. sb. A follower of Zoroaster; a Parsee.
1817. Byron, Lett. to F. Hodgson, 3 Sept. I would sooner be a Paulician, Manichæan, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian, Zoroastrian, than any one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord.
1864. Pusey, Daniel, 492. The doctrine of the Resurrection … was not known to the Zoroastrians until after the Christian era.
1886. Phil Robinson, Vall. Teetotum Trees, 3. The semi-sacred character of the holly … among the Zoroastrians and Fire-worshippers.
Hence Zoroastrianize v., trans. and intr., to make or become Zoroastrian in character.
1891. Cheyne, Orig. Psalter, viii. 449. Zoroastrianizing phraseology. Ibid., 452. The Judaism carried to Egypt … had … already been in some degree Zoroastrianized.
