Dictionary

bisectarian en · ADJ

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *dwi- Proto-Italic *dwi- Latin bi-bor. English bi- English sectarian English bisectarian From bi- + sectarian.

Meanings

1. Pertaining to sectarianism regarding exactly two sects.
   • The bisectarian prism tended not only to relegate to irrelevance the concerns and interests of the other sects, but also to cause the Sunni and Maronite leaders only too aware of one another, tended by the same token to be exclusivist and somehow to abolish from view the existence of other sects, Christian and Muslim alike. 1991, Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Fida Nasrallah, and Nadim Shehadi, State and Society in Lebanon, publ. Centre for Lebanese Studies, Tufts University, →ISBN, page 31:
   • The Northern Ireland Labor Party, bisectarian and from 1945 committed to partition, has been an exception to the opposition's typical character. 1972, Northern Ireland: Hearings, Ninety-second Congress, Second Session, February 28 and 29 and March 1, 1972, publ. United States Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Europe, U.S. Govt. Print. Off., pg. 546
   • With U.S. forces drawing down and a bisectarian government emerging in Baghdad, the "mainstream" rejectionists have lost their rationale. 2006, Bing West, "What Lies Ahead" in "Handing Off a War, Dispatches From Iraq," Slate, May 25, 2006

Forms