ultramontane

comparative more ultramontane · superlative most ultramontane

1. lifestylePromoting the supremacy of the Pope.

   My friend, a Scottish newspaper chief, has spent half a lifetime gliding across some of Fleet Street's more ultramontane and unreasonable titles.

   2010 September 12, Kevin McKenna, “Save Catholicism? The pope needs a miracle”, in The Guardian

   2 more examples

   'Tis no wonder that a Council which had declar'd itſelf ſuperior to the Popes, which had undertaken to try, and even to depoſe them, and had given ſuch great Blows to the Privileges, and to the Authority of the Cardinals, was not relith'd by the Court of Rome, nor approv'd of by the Popes or tlieir Divines, nor by the Ultramontane Canonists.

   1730, [1728], Jacques L'enfant, translated by Stephen Whatley, The History of the Council of Constance, volume 1, page ix

   It was by becoming a Catholic that I pacified the Vendee, and a Mussulman that I established myself in Egypt; it was by becoming ultramontane that I won over public opinion in Italy.

   1910 [August 13, 1800], Napoleon Bonaparte, The Corsican: a Diary of Napoleon's Life in his Own Words, trans. Robert Matteson Johnston, Houghton Mifflin, pg. 144-145

   Synonyms: ultramontanist, curialist, popist, Romist

2. From the other side of a mountain range, particularly the Alps.

   He was slenderly provided with means for his ultramontane journey; and he resolved to save all he could in Italy, that he might not be restricted when among foreigners.

   1835, Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men, volume 2, pages 263–264

   2 more examples

   A march of about forty miles from Sohar up wadys, with intermittent water in their beds, brought his party to the frontier of the Batina, and by a low pass (i860 feet) it crossed the dividing ridge into the ultramontane province, Dahira.

   1905, David George Hogarth, The Penetration of Arabia: a Record of the Development of Western Knowledge Concerning the Arabian Peninsula, Alston Rivers, page 231

   Whatever their physics, the spectacular ultramontane sunsets are an important part of Seattle's claim to be "a flower of geography" — as Henry James called the city in 1907, placing it in the company of Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, Naples, Sydney, and San Francisco.

   2004 April 4, Jonathan Raban, “Deference to nature keeps Seattle from becoming world-class city”, in The Seattle Times

   Synonyms: transmontane · Antonyms: cismontane

plural ultramontanes

1. Someone who holds to the supremacy of the Pope over the secular and ecclesiastical worlds