Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is sent on a mission, especially one sent to do religious or charitable work in a territory or foreign country.
  • noun One who attempts to persuade or convert others to a particular program, doctrine, or set of principles; a propagandist.
  • adjective Of or relating to missions or missionaries.
  • adjective Engaged in the activities of a mission or missionary.
  • adjective Tending to propagandize or use insistent persuasion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Relating or pertaining to missions, especially Christian missions; proper to one sent on a mission; characteristic of a propagandist: as, a missionary society or meeting; missionary funds; missionary work; missionary zeal or energy.
  • noun One who is sent upon a mission; an envoy or messenger.
  • noun Specifically, a person sent by ecclesiastical authority to labor for the propagation of his religious faith in a community where his church has no self-supporting indigenous organization; hence, any propagandist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of or pertaining to missions
  • noun One who is sent on a mission; especially, one sent to propagate religion.
  • noun a Roman Catholic missionary sent by commission from the pope.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who travels attempting to spread a religion or a creed.
  • noun pejorative A religious messenger.
  • noun uncountable A common position for undertaking sexual intercourse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who attempts to convert others to a particular doctrine or program
  • adjective relating to or connected to a religious mission
  • noun someone sent on a mission--especially a religious or charitable mission to a foreign country

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mission +‎ -ary

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