zoolaterhttp://www.oed.com/dictionary/zoolater_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_usezoolater, n.
Revised 2017

zoolaternoun

  1. 1876–
    A person who worships animals. Also hyperbolically: a person who is extremely or excessively fond of animals. Cf. zoolatry n.
    1. 1876
      Zoolâtre, zoolater, zoolatress.
      F. E. A. Gasc, Dictionary French & English Language (new edition) 580/2
    2. 1880
      Enthusiastic zoölaters, who desire to abolish the objective method of teaching physiology.
      Nature 30 September 517/2
    3. 1886
      The Navajos then are zoölaters; that is..they worship the lower animals.
      American Naturalist October 850
    4. 1914
      Everyone except an occasional zoölater grants that the world is not large enough now both for them [sc. foxes and rabbits] and for us.
      Unpop. Review October 344
    5. 1987
      The Egyptians remained the zoolaters par excellence.
      F. Schmidt, Inconceivable Polytheism 13
    6. 1994
      The stock of concepts that the Europeans used to understand the other was pathetically poor: ‘heathens’ or..‘zoolaters’.
      S. N. Balagangadhara, Heathen in Blindness 111

Originally published as part of the entry for zoolatry, n.

zoolater, n. was revised in June 2017.

zoolater, n. was last modified in March 2024.