How to Use heathen in a Sentence

heathen

noun
  • European colonizers, who considered the New World peoples to be heathens, forced them to conform to European ways.
  • The heathen Cardinals are in town tonight, for the first of four.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 12 Apr. 2018
  • There was still a certain code of the road between ballplayers and the heathens that covered them.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 14 July 2019
  • Savages and heathens, lowly and oppressed, hailed and welcomed it at the far end of the wide world.
    — Josh Axelrod and Saeed Ahmed, CNN, 14 June 2018
  • What’s shocking, but shouldn’t be, has been the reaction of some fans and media heathens.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 28 Aug. 2019
  • Rather than indulge her heathen wishes, the school’s PTA has cancelled the whole event.
    — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 11 Dec. 2020
  • Anyone who besmirches his sanctity is a heathen, a liar or—even worse—a Democrat.
    — Michael Harriot, The Root, 12 Feb. 2018
  • Unfortunately for heathens, there are racists who have also adopted the Ásatrú faith.
    — Sigal Samuel, The Atlantic, 2 Nov. 2017
  • The worst thing a coach/manager/athlete can do to a heathen media member is insulting his or her intelligence.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 28 Sep. 2017
  • Another resident said the militants used the excuse of smashing heathen tombstones to search the grounds.
    — Loveday Morris, Washington Post, 11 July 2019
  • Even in normal draft seasons, the amount of non-information presented by us heathens is staggering.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 9 Apr. 2020
  • Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals.
    — Peter Holley, OrlandoSentinel.com, 6 June 2017
  • Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals.
    — Paul Blest, New Republic, 6 July 2017
  • Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals.
    — Robert Mann, NOLA.com, 9 June 2017
  • Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals.
    — Maya Rhodan, Time, 5 June 2017
  • Not one penny of American treasure should be granted to any nation who harbors these heathen animals.
    — Peter Holley, Washington Post, 7 June 2017
  • And then there are the crusaders who are trying to claim the heathen Eastern European lands for democracy and freedom.
    — Keith Gessen, New York Times, 8 May 2018
  • Many perceived the Chinese to be a heathen race, unassimilable and alien to the American way of life.
    — Michael Luo, The New Yorker, 22 Apr. 2021
  • Christine, my personal hall monitor, suggested that some might see us as heathens, boys running wild with guns and ill-prepared for our adventure.
    — Steve Meyer, Anchorage Daily News, 5 June 2019
  • Nobody much until now has taken seriously the idea that the 45th president is a man of deep and abiding faith who is just misconstrued as a heathen.
    — Ed Kilgore, Daily Intelligencer, 14 July 2017
  • Stupid American heathens bringing their fancy tuxedos into houses of worship.
    — Jessica Pan, The Cut, 17 May 2018
  • Regardless, a little heathen-media disrespeck never hurt a team needing to avoid 1st-round disaster.
    — Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 12 Mar. 2018
  • Sit next to Cavafy, the Alexandrian poet of philosophers and heathens, and look at Hadrian’s gate still welcoming you in the city of Theseus.
    — Miles Socha, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Frank Chin argued that first-person writing was a vestige of Christian conquest, when heathens would demonstrate their worth by participating in stories of self-discovery and consciousness.
    — Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2019
  • The point was to propagate, from the loudest bully pulpit in history, the worst stereotypes of Muslims as bearded heathen coming to destroy Western culture and civilization.
    — Omer Aziz, New Republic, 22 Dec. 2017
  • Predictably, the hubbub surrounding the photo was eventually framed as a war between uptight virgins and godless heathens, with a quieter contingent astounded only by the fact that this kind of marketing could still be so effective.
    — Amanda Petrusich, New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2025
  • Not only was its population warlike, heathen and independent, the country itself is immensely long and broken by innumerable fjords, each with its patch of habitable land, almost inaccessible except by sea.
    — Tom Shippey, WSJ, 22 Sep. 2017
  • The colonizers, charged exclusively with the mission to bring back treasure and convert heathens to Christianity, were incapable of seeing the natives of the New World in any other context.
    — Tom Gjelten, Washington Post, 23 Aug. 2019
  • She’s taken, perversely, with John the Baptist, imprisoned in a cistern and prophesying doom for the decadent, Godless heathens, Salome in particular.
    — Classical Music Critic, Los Angeles Times, 27 Mar. 2026
  • Marc makes an example of the penitent, powerless Jeanne, reminding the rest of his flock of the punishment for apostasy and using her rough time among the heathens as proof of why none under his control should ever want to trade his order for such modern sin and depravity.
    — Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 15 May 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'heathen.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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