Orthodoxy
/ˈɔrθədɑksi/noun
Belief that conforms to the accepted teaching of a church, school or party.
The Greek roots
Literally: “right opinion”
The story of the word
δόξα started as what seems to be so, from δοκεῖν, to seem, which is why paradox is a belief running against appearances. The Septuagint translators then pressed δόξα into service for the glory of God, and that is the sense inside doxology, a song of glory rather than a speech about opinions. Christian writers used ὀρθοδοξία against heresy long before the schism of 1054 handed the word to a church, and by the nineteenth century English was applying it to economics and party lines as readily as to creeds.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
Questioning the growth target was treated as a lapse from orthodoxy rather than an argument.
Her grandmother kept the fasts with an orthodoxy the parish priest found excessive.