ungod

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English

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Etymology

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From un- +‎ god. Compare Dutch ontgoden, German entgöttern.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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ungod (third-person singular simple present ungods, present participle ungodding, simple past and past participle ungodded)

  1. (transitive) To divest of a god; to atheize.
    • 1687, John Dryden, The Hind and the Panther:
      Thus men ungodded may to places rise, / And sects may be preferr'd without disguise: / No danger to the church or state from these; / The Papist only has his writ of ease.
  2. (transitive) To divest of godly powers; to strip of divinity.
    • 1830, Richard Baxter, The Practical Works of Richard Baxter:
      He that would have another god, would have the Lord to be ungodded, and to lose his sovereign power and goodness!
    • 2008, Matt Kimmich, Offspring Fictions: Salman Rushdie's Family Novels:
      Perhaps Saladin's "ungodding" of his father is a necessary first step for the male child's emancipation...

Noun

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ungod (plural ungods)

  1. A false god; an idol
    • 2008, Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses:
      They provoked Me with an ungod, they vexed Me with their empty things.
    • 2011, Slavoj Žižek, John Milbank, Creston Davis, The Monstrosity of Christ:
      [...] it isn't that Godhead “isn't God,” it's that Godhead is a non-God, an “Ungod” (in the same sense as we talk of the “undead” who are neither living or dead, but the living dead).
    • 2015, M.P. Joseph, Theologies of the Non-Person:
      The god of cult is an ungod, because the god of cult represents a god molded in the image of the worshippers and created to satisfy their innate ambitions and it is likewise with the god of dogma, which is a reified form of idolatry.
    • 2016, Tanith Lee, No Flame But Mine:
      He had not blinked, Curjai noted, not once in many minutes. Perhaps not since he had come to out there in the snow. 'When you – recovered, what did you think had happened to you?' 'I know what happened. One of your local gler ungods struck me, turned me to ice. Death. I didn't want to go. It was wrong.'

Anagrams

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Old English

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Etymology

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From Proto-West Germanic *ungōd. Equivalent to un- (un-) +‎ gōd (good).

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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ungōd

  1. not good, bad

Declension

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Descendants

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  • Middle English: ungode, vngood

References

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