[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.
