iconoclast

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i·con·o·clast

(ī-kŏn′ə-klăst′)

1. One who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.

2. One who destroys sacred religious images.

[French iconoclaste, from Medieval Greek eikonoklastēs, smasher of religious images : eikono-, icono- + Greek -klastēs, breaker (from klān, klas-, to break).]

i·con′o·clas′tic adj.

i·con′o·clas′ti·cal·ly adv.

Word History: Among the Ten Commandments found in the Bible is the following: "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." In the 8th and 9th centuries, these words inspired some Christians of the Byzantine Empire to destroy religious images such as paintings and sculptures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. The Medieval Greek word for a person who destroyed such images was eikonoklastēs, formed from the elements eikōn, "image, likeness," and -klastēs, "breaker," and the Medieval Greek word is the source of the English word iconoclast. In addition to simply destroying many paintings and sculptures, the Medieval Greek iconoclasts also sought to have them barred from display and veneration. In English, the word iconoclast was originally used in reference to these Byzantine iconoclasts. During the Protestant Reformation, however, images in churches were again felt to be idolatrous and were once more banned and destroyed, and the word iconoclast came to be used of the Protestant opponents of graven images, too. In the 19th century, iconoclast took on the secular sense that it has today.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

iconoclast

(aɪˈkɒnəˌklæst)

1. a person who attacks established or traditional concepts, principles, laws, etc

a. a destroyer of religious images or sacred objects

b. an adherent of the heretical movement within the Greek Orthodox Church from 725 to 842 ad, which aimed at the destruction of icons and religious images

[C16: from Late Latin iconoclastes, from Late Greek eikonoklastes, from eikōn icon + klastēs breaker]

iˌconoˈclastic adj

iˌconoˈclastically adv

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

i•con•o•clast

(aɪˈkɒn əˌklæst)

n.

1. a person who attacks cherished beliefs or traditional institutions as being based on error or superstition.

2. a breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration.

[1590–1600; < Medieval Latin īconoclastēs < Medieval Greek eikonoklástēs= Greek eikono- icono- + -klastēs breaker, agentive derivative of klân to break]

i•con`o•clas′tic, adj.

i•con`o•clas′ti•cal•ly, adv.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	iconoclast - a destroyer of images used in religious worship image breaker ruiner, uprooter, waster, destroyer, undoer - a person who destroys or ruins or lays waste to; "a destroyer of the environment"; "jealousy was his undoer"; "uprooters of gravestones"
	2.	iconoclast - someone who attacks cherished ideas or traditional institutions aggressor, assailant, assaulter, attacker - someone who attacks

iconoclast

noun rebel, radical, dissident, heretic He was an iconoclast who refused to be bound by tradition.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

εικονοκλάστης

iconoclaste

iconoclasta

iconoclast

[aɪˈkɒnəklæst] N → iconoclasta mf

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

iconoclast

[aɪˈkɒnəklæst] n → iconoclaste mf

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

iconoclast

n (lit) → Bilderstürmer m, → Ikonoklast m (liter); (fig) → Bilderstürmer(in) m(f)

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

iconoclast

[aɪˈkɒnəklæst] n (frm) → iconoclasta m/f

References in periodicals archive ?

The Qing historian Zhang Xuecheng [phrase omitted] (1738-1801) remains the exceptional scholar in traditional China to have iconoclastically proclaimed that "all Six Classics are the old authoritative documents of the Duke of Zhou; Confucius does not have anything to do with them" [phrase omitted].

The Adaptive Commentary of Du Yu (222-284): Schematizing the Presence and Absence of "Norms" (li [phrase omitted]) in the Tri-Partite Annals through the Zuo Tradition

(27) Astrophil's demythologizing of the Alexandrian Cupid in this quatrain from the fifth sonnet, with its iconoclastically Protestant temper, thus does indeed emphasize his departure from Petrarch (as from La Boetie).

Cupid, Choice, and Rewriting Petrarch in the Early Sonnets of Astrophil and Stella

(2) He also iconoclastically argued against the more specific notion that shortages of weapons and artillery shells (caused by industrial backwardness) were the key barrier to Russian military success.

The Russian army in World War I

Unlike a Protestant aesthetic sensibility, which is iconoclastically wary of the visual and far more attracted to the beauty of a faith that comes from hearing the Word of God purely preached (fides ex auditu), a Catholic aesthetics turns to the visual apprehension of creation--in Aquinas's apt phrase "intellectum nostrum ...

The aesthetics of tradition and the styles of theology

Child frequently employed American icons iconoclastically in her nonfiction, fiction, and editorial work combating racial injustice.

Iconoclasm, parody, and the provocations of lydia maria child's a romance of the republic

While his study of iconoclasm vacillates, he also promises an opportunity for the reader to "learn to think a bit more iconoclastically by understanding how the three key brain circuits work." (6) Here he succeeds.

Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently

In the first Playboy "Panel" on "Censorship in Literature and the Arts" editors introduced Mailer as "among the forefront of individualistic, iconoclastically outspoken American author" (27, July 1961).

Norman Mailer: Playboy magazine heavyweight

The friendship between Jane and Alex progresses iconoclastically, with sexual interest from Jane's boyfriend Ian (and Alex's own restless curiosity) resulting in a late-night manage a trois in the swimming pool.

Mrs Robinson's vindication: Hollywood representations of the sexually active mother in Something's Gotta Give and Laurel Canyon (an Approach to "Herethics" in Popular Culture)

Often iconoclastically for them, they learned that "the homeless" aren't any one kind of person.

(Un)standard deviations: observing diversity / enabling divergence

Banned from representing their own symbolic traditions, Aboriginal artists used techniques such as cross-hatching and dot splatters to create paintings that "utter" one story to outsider communities while conveying an entirely different meaning--beneath the palimpsestic layers--to "insider communities." So, too, in Luhrmann's film, the cross functions both traditionally, as a symbol of religious devotion, and iconoclastically, appearing on guns and knives that underscore the violence of the colonial mission.