Holy Roller
4
9.9
- noun
- /ˈhoʊli ˈroʊlər/
- Slur
:
[Ofensivo] fanático religioso
- It was also a practical necessity, a product of their marginalization and ridicule as "Holy Rollers."
- Holy Roller church
Examples
-
Dad said in that case he could live with his holy-roller Methodist relatives since he'd no longer be welcome at home.
Fiction book (2002) -
He's going to some new holy roller church.
-
I hate to break this to ya, "Found The Truth," but I was once a holy roller like you.
Blog text (22) -
We're not a bunch of Holy Rollers, but we put business ahead of everything.
Fiction book (1991) -
The holy rollers are taking us on quite the ride.
Blog text (4) -
I mean, I don't think any holy rollers are gonna come around here.
-
She was a holy roller, and then she vanished.
-
Then I paid first and last month's rent on a storefront that was down the street from a Holy Roller church called Messenger of the Divine.
Fiction book (2002) -
So there, inside that borrowed Ford truck, while the rain beat down and they headed home, they cried with a sound like the wails of the Holy Rollers.
Fiction book (1999) -
When the church held its revival meetings, the Holy Roller led the congregation in ecstatic worship, dancing and shouting with joy.
Synonyms
19
3.2
A person who goes to a place like a church to show respect to someone they think is holy
Surface Forms
Morphology
holy + Roller
The phrase is partly compositional: 'holy' (sacred) + 'roller' (one who rolls) can lead a learner to infer a religious person who literally or figuratively 'rolls' in worship. However, the specific label meaning (an adherent of ecstatic Christian worship, often with cultural/pejorative connotations) and its pragmatic force are not fully predictable from the parts alone, so prior exposure or cultural knowledge is needed.
Etymology
The term Holy Roller comes from watching some church services where people shouted, danced and even rolled on the floor in strong religious feeling, so people called them Holy, meaning 'religious', and Roller, meaning 'someone who rolls'. That's why the phrase means 'a church member who shows very strong, often physical, religious feeling'.