heathen

The tradition has been celebrated for centuries and is believed to have its roots in a heathen festival to celebrate the return of spring.

From BBC ● May 25, 2026

With the passage of centuries, the Eurocentric accounts that depicted Cortés as a heroic “white savior” and Moctezuma as a cowardly heathen have been eclipsed.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2025

I don't want to just boil it down to a justification for empire, because I don't think everybody using the concept of the heathen is doing it with that in mind.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2022

“I joked that since I didn’t get the religious one I must be a heathen or something,” he said.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 18, 2021

Priests come to the school to recruit us for the foreign missions, Redemptorists, Franciscans, Holy Ghost Fathers, all converting the distant heathen.

From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt

She’s taken, perversely, with John the Baptist, imprisoned in a cistern and prophesying doom for the decadent, Godless heathens, Salome in particular.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2026

The eight-track “Under the Midnight Sun” has triggered two singles, “Give Me Mercy” and “A Cut Inside,” with Astbury singing: “No heathens in heaven/ No sweet surrender/ Outsiders forever/ Ghosts of our lives.”

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 3, 2022

So I guess you could say this book is the attempt of a historian to understand myself and my people — people understood to be heathens in the history of this country.

From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2022

The reactions have been as comical as they are predictable: Wall Street grandees bemoaning the sophomoric heathens who’ve turned finance into a video game.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 30, 2021

We may have been wild and rebellious, but our mother wasn’t raising complete heathens.

From "Summer of the Mariposas" by Guadalupe García McCall