pagan

noun

1. (no longer in technical use) one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks.
2. a member of a religious, spiritual, or cultural community based on the worship of nature or the earth; a neopagan.
3. Disparaging and Offensive.
   1. (in historical contexts) a person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim; a heathen.
   2. an irreligious or hedonistic person.
   3. an uncivilized or unenlightened person.

adjective

4. of, relating to, or characteristic of pagans.
5. Disparaging and Offensive.
   1. relating to the worship or worshipers of any religion that is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim.
   2. irreligious or hedonistic.
   3. (of a person) uncivilized or unenlightened.

noun

1. a member of a group professing a polytheistic religion or any religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam
2. a person without any religion; heathen

adjective

3. of or relating to pagans or their faith or worship
4. heathen; irreligious

n.late 14c., from Late Latin paganus “pagan,” in classical Latin “villager, rustic; civilian, non-combatant” noun use of adjective meaning “of the country, of a village,” from pagus “country people; province, rural district,” originally “district limited by markers,” thus related to pangere “to fix, fasten,” from PIE root *pag- “to fix” (see pact). As an adjective from early 15c. Religious sense is often said to derive from conservative rural adherence to the old gods after the Christianization of Roman towns and cities; but the word in this sense predates that period in Church history, and it is more likely derived from the use of paganus in Roman military jargon for “civilian, incompetent soldier,” which Christians (Tertullian, c.202; Augustine) picked up with the military imagery of the early Church (e.g. milites “soldier of Christ,” etc.). Applied to modern pantheists and nature-worshippers from 1908.