apostasy

noun

apos·ta·sy | \ə-ˈpäs-tə-sē

plural apostasies

Definition of apostasy

1 : an act of refusing to continue to follow, obey, or recognize a religious faith

2 : abandonment of a previous loyalty : defection

Examples of apostasy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Suspicion for carrying out the attack in Gardez, the capital of Paktia province, immediately fell on the local branch of the Sunni fundamentalist Islamic State, which views Shiism, a minority branch of Islam, as apostasy. — Ehsanullah Amiri, WSJ, "Mosque Attack Leaves at Least 30 Dead in Afghanistan," 3 Aug. 2018 As our research shows, charges of apostasy are a powerful tool for delineating group membership and assigning rights. — Ian M. Hartshorn And Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Washington Post, "Here’s what happens when diplomats get involved in religious rhetoric," 11 Apr. 2018 More than 40 leading French chefs, winemakers, and cheese ripeners signed an open letter, published on Tuesday in the daily Libération, denouncing this apostasy and calling on President Emmanuel Macron to put a stop to it. — Elian Peltier, New York Times, "Camembert Without Raw Milk? It’s Treason, Connoisseurs Cry," 16 May 2018 Some interpreters of Islamic law and their followers have argued that the punishment for apostasy is death. — Ian M. Hartshorn And Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Washington Post, "Here’s what happens when diplomats get involved in religious rhetoric," 11 Apr. 2018 Accusations of apostasy, called takfir in Arabic, have often preceded violence throughout the Middle East. — Ian M. Hartshorn And Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Washington Post, "Here’s what happens when diplomats get involved in religious rhetoric," 11 Apr. 2018 Come Sunday is not a biographical film about apostasy. — David Sims, The Atlantic, "Come Sunday Is an Uneven Biopic of Faith and Dissent," 12 Apr. 2018 Cohen certainly offers a challenge to the conventional wisdom that HOPE was Miller’s great progressive accomplishment, to be balanced against his later political apostasies. — Ed Kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, "No, the HOPE Scholarship Didn’t Kill Great Society Liberalism," 31 Mar. 2018 One, Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet, curator and artist, was convicted on apostasy charges in 2015 and sentenced by a Saudi court to death by beheading. — Kareem Fahim, Washington Post, "As Saudi Arabia relaxes its controls on culture and entertainment, artists dream — and worry," 10 Jan. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'apostasy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.