bisectarian

B3I1S1E1C3T1A1R1I1A1N1

adjective

Pertaining to sectarianism regarding exactly two sects.

Scrabble 15

Meanings

adjectivebisectarian (comparative more bisectarian, superlative most bisectarian)

comparative more bisectarian · superlative most bisectarian · alternative bi-sectarian

  1. Pertaining to sectarianism regarding exactly two sects.

    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
    2 more examples

    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

    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

Origin

  1. Proto-Indo-European*dwóh₁
  2. Proto-Indo-European*dwi-
  3. Proto-Italic*dwi-
  4. Latinbi-
  5. Englishbi-
  6. Englishsectarian
  7. Englishbisectarian

From bi- + sectarian.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

bisectarian. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bisectarian

MLA

“bisectarian.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bisectarian. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bisectarian,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bisectarian.

Source: bisectarian on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.