Meanings
- uncountablebasileiolatry
His animus…led him to handle as self-evident fallacies the darling predilections of centuries of British basilolatry.
1904, Louise Imogen Guiney, Hurrell Froude, page 2145 more examples
[Bp Samuel] Parker has been more than usually offensive in his Basilolatry (if we may coin a word), and [Andrew] Marvell says, “His Majesty” (it would seem) “may lay by his Dieu, and make use only of his mon droit.”
1876, Henry Kingsley, Fireside Studies I, “The Old-Fashioned Member”, page 261The fact is that there is not in the Roman liturgy…any of the extravagant basilolatry which we find in the Book of Common Prayer.
1902, The Month, C, page 89Individualism…was not quite at its best in the self-righteous era of George the Third, and under the Establishment which was regulated by a now almost obsolete basilolatry.
1904, Louise Imogen Guiney, Robert Emmet, page 68Why Thomas Cromwell himself should have contrasted his “mean parentage” with his “high estate,” except out of sheer servility of spirit, out of what has been called basilolatry, the saving dread of the Tudors, is not apparent.
1914, Wilfrid Ward, editor, The Dublin Review, CLIV, page 250The ‘basilolatry’ or king-worship which came to disfigure the Prayer Book stands in marked contrast to the sober intercessions of the Roman liturgy of the period for both emperor and king.
1993, Aidan Nichols, The Panther and the Hind, page 24
Origin
- Ancient Greekλατρεία
- Ancient Greekβασιλ(εύς)“king”
- Englishbasilolatry
Ancient Greek βασιλ(εύς) (basil(eús), “king”) + English -latry (from the Ancient Greek λατρεία (latreía), latreia, “worship”); compare basileiolatry, basileolatry, basilic, and basilisk
More words from Ancient Greek
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
basilolatry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/basilolatry
“basilolatry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/basilolatry. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “basilolatry,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/basilolatry.
Source: basilolatry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.