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Glite Dictionary
🔗 A person whipped 🙏 Religious self-whipper
flagellant

flagellant

1 9.9
A person who whips themselves or others as a religious act to show sorrow
  • noun
  • /fləˈdʒɛlənt/
translation icon : flagelante
  • In medieval Europe, some religious groups practiced self-discipline by becoming flagellants who whipped themselves as penance.

Examples

  • He became a flagellant after joining a strict religious sect.

  • Many flagellants participated in the ritual during the festival.

  • During the Middle Ages, flagellants were known to parade through towns whipping themselves in public.

  • Some historians study the rituals practiced by flagellants in medieval Europe.

  • The flagellant walked through the streets, whipping himself in penance.

  • During certain rituals, the flagellants would gather to demonstrate their faith through physical suffering.

  • The flagellants believed that enduring pain would bring them closer to God and cleanse their sins.

Surface Forms

flagellant singular
flagellants plural

Morphology

flagellant = flagellate (transparent) = flagell + ant

Agentive formation: '-ant' added to 'flagellate' yields 'one who flagellates' (religious penance), a direct derivation.

Etymology

Flagellant comes from the Latin flagellum, meaning 'whip'. In the past, flagellants walked through towns and whipped themselves to show they were sorry or to punish themselves for sin, so the word now means someone who whips themselves for religious reasons.