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In the 1st century A.D., a fanatical sect arose in Judaea to oppose the Roman domination of Palestine. Known as the Zealots, they fought their most famous battle at the great fortress of Masada, where 1,000 defenders took their own lives just as the Romans were about to storm the fort. Over the years, zealot came to mean anyone who is passionately devoted to a cause. The adjective zealous may describe someone who's merely dedicated and energetic ("a zealous investigator", "zealous about combating inflation", etc.). But zealot (like its synonym fanatic) and zealotry (like its synonym fanaticism) are used disapprovingly—even while Jews everywhere still honor the memory of those who died at Masada.
Synonyms
Examples of zealot in a Sentence
David Von Drehle, Washington Post, 17 June 2024
Richard Siegelman Left to decay Boston: $175 billion has gone to fund a distant war that our government — specifically, neocon zealot and former Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland — started by orchestrating a coup and installing Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president of Ukraine.
—Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 16 June 2024
There’s the trial of a Sámi woman, Kari, in seventeenth-century Finnmark; of a young religious zealot named Marie-Catherine Cadière, in eighteenth-century France; and of a twentieth-century politician, Bereng Lerotholi, in Basutoland, in present-day Lesotho.
—The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
The mutant Bishop is sent back in time to stop a member of the X-Men from assassinating the bigoted zealot Senator Kelly.
—Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 15 Mar. 2024
See all Example Sentences for zealot 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'zealot.' 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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Cite this Entry
“Zealot.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zealot. Accessed 4 Jul. 2024.
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zealot
noun
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