evangelical
part of speech
adjective (evangelical, more evangelical); noun (an evangelical, evangelicals)
meaning for a pupil
1) (church) Evangelical describes Christians and churches that put great weight on the Bible, on a personal faith in Jesus and on telling others the good news. tree →
2) (church) An evangelical is a person who belongs to this kind of Christianity. tree →
3) Very keen and eager to persuade others about something you believe in, like a cause or a hobby. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories and lessons on church life it tells the reader what kind of church or believer someone is: lively worship, Bible study, sharing faith. In everyday talk «evangelical about» means wildly enthusiastic: «evangelical about recycling». Phrases: evangelical church, evangelical Christian, evangelical zeal.
examples
- Our neighbours go to an evangelical church on the corner. tree →
- Evangelical Christians believe that each person can have a personal friendship with God. tree →
- The evangelical preacher spoke about the good news of Jesus. tree →
- Many evangelicals read the Bible every day. tree →
- My uncle is evangelical about cycling and tells everyone to get a bike. tree →
- She was almost evangelical about her new vegetable diet. tree →
- The evangelical youth group sang songs at the summer camp. tree →
note
Comes from «evangel», an old word for the gospel, the «good news». Capital letter is optional but common when naming a group. Not the same as «evangelist» (a person who preaches the gospel, or one of the four Gospel writers). The everyday sense «very keen» is a bit of a joke-comparison; it is not about religion.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «evangelical» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.