Dictionary

paynim en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈpeɪnɪm/

Etymology

From Middle English paynym, paynyme, from Anglo-Norman paienime, peinime et al., from Late Latin paganismus (“paganism”), from Latin paganus (“pagan”). Doublet of paganism.

Meanings

1. (archaic) A pagan or heathen, especially a Muslim, or a Jew.
   • To this his native soyle thou backe shalt bring, / Strongly to ayde his countrey to withstand / The powre of forreine Paynims which invade thy land. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
   • (Though like a covered field, where champions bold / Wont ride in armed, and at the soldan's chair / Defied the best of paynim chivalry / To mortal combat, or career with lance). 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 763-6:
   • St Helen’s bell rang reminders that she lived, a paynim or Mahometan, in the church’s shadow. 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:
   • And if it be idolatry to do as the paynims did—make an idol “God”—it must needs be much worse idolatry to do as these heretics do, 1530, Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, Preface to the Christian reader
   • But there was one knyght that dyd merueyllously thre dayes / and he bare a black shelde / and of alle knyghtes that euer I sawe he preued the best knyȝt / thenne said Kyng mark that was syre launcelot or syre palomydes the paynym 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xxxviij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book IX:

Forms