the.com/gentile
A term for someone who is not Jewish, or, in some usage, not Mormon.
means A person who isn't Jewish — or, depending on who's talking, isn't Mormon, since the word just means 'not one of us' to whoever's using it.
from From Latin gentilis, 'of a clan or family' (from gens, 'clan, tribe'), which drifted to mean 'of a particular nation' and then, in Church Latin translating the Hebrew goyim ('nations'), came to mean specifically 'not Jewish' — the outsider defined entirely from the insider's point of view. Mormon usage later borrowed the same logic and pointed it at a different 'us.'
- origin
- from Latin gens, meaning tribe or clan
- meaning shift
- once meant any foreign nation, not just non-Jews
- mormon usage
- LDS members also call non-Mormons gentiles
- not an insult
- descriptive term, despite sounding like one