Eisegete

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who places meaning on a text which is not originally or inherently present in the text itself.
Verb
  1. 1
    To place meaning on a text which is not originally or inherently present in the text itself

    "Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments edited by Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart (page 255) (Routledge, →ISBN http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0415968887&id=9MD3qFaGYKcC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&ots=WTzI0sbp1m&dq=eisegete&sig=FYhXwSuFYFJfumbj9GFo-WlHF7c And nowhere does that nongivenness appear more clearly, paradoxial as that may be, than in the image of Jesus writing something that we readers cannot read, cannot exegete or eisegete, and therefore cannot deconstruct."

Example

More examples

"Derrida and Religion: Other Testaments edited by Yvonne Sherwood, Kevin Hart (page 255) (Routledge, →ISBN http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0415968887&id=9MD3qFaGYKcC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&ots=WTzI0sbp1m&dq=eisegete&sig=FYhXwSuFYFJfumbj9GFo-WlHF7c And nowhere does that nongivenness appear more clearly, paradoxial as that may be, than in the image of Jesus writing something that we readers cannot read, cannot exegete or eisegete, and therefore cannot deconstruct."

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