Jansenism

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The Catholic doctrines of Cornelius Jansen and his followers, which emphasise original sin, divine grace and predestination; condemned as a heresy by Pope Innocent X in 1653. uncountable

    "From the mid-seventeenth century, therefore, disputes about Jansenism turned into a struggle for the soul of the French Church, now vigorously resurgent against a steadily more beleaguered Reformed Protestantism."

  2. 2
    the Roman Catholic doctrine of Cornelis Jansen and his disciples; salvation is limited to those who are subject to supernatural determinism and the rest are assigned to perdition wordnet

Example

More examples

"From the mid-seventeenth century, therefore, disputes about Jansenism turned into a struggle for the soul of the French Church, now vigorously resurgent against a steadily more beleaguered Reformed Protestantism."

Etymology

From Jansen + -ism.

Related phrases

divine graceoriginal sin

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.