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''deity'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''deity'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817195045-00-⌔

deity - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

deity (countable and uncountable, plural deities)

  • Synonym of divinity: the state, position, or fact of being a god. [from 14th c.]
    • ✤ Thou seest all, yet none at all sees thee:/All that is by the working of thy Deitee.1
  • A supernatural divine being; a god or goddess. [from 14th c.]
    • ✤ The fact that in most lands the moon was originally a female deity has led many historians to dispute the superiority of the moon over the sun in ancient mythology.2
    • ✤ Every act of a Roman, from birth to death, from dawn to night, was controlled and supervised by some presiding deity.3
    • ✤ The crux of monotheism is not only belief in a single deity but belief in a deity who is different from everything else.4

Etymology

From Middle French deité, from Latin deitās.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈdiː.ɪ.ti/, /ˈdeɪ.ɪ.ti/, [ˈdeɪ̯-]
    • Audio (UK); /ˈdiː.ɪ.ti/: 🔊
    • Audio (UK); /ˈdeɪ.ɪ.ti/:[^5] 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈdi.ə.ti/, [ˈdi.ə.ɾi],/ˈdeɪ.ə.ti/, [ˈdeɪ̯.ə.ɾi]
  • (South Asia) IPA: /ˈɖɛj(ɪ)ʈi/
  • (Canada) IPA: [ˈdeː.ɪɾi], [ˈdiː-], [-tɪ]
  • (Australia) IPA: [ˈdɪjɪɾɪj], [ˈdæjɪɾɪj], [-tɪj]
  • Hyphenation: de‧i‧ty

Printed 2026-08-17.

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Footnotes

  1. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 4: ↩

  2. 1941, George Ryley Scott, Phallic Worship: A History of Sex and Sex Rites in Relation to the Religions of All Races from Antiquity to the Present Day, London: T. Werner Laurie, page 15: ↩

  3. 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 209: ↩

  4. 2000, Kenneth Seeskin, Searching for a Distant God: The Legacy of Maimonides, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 23: ↩

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Secondary

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