catechism

• categise (eye dialect, archaic, rare)

From Late Latin catechismus, from Ancient Greek *κατηχισμός (*katēkhismós), from κατηχίζω (katēkhízō, “to catechize”), a later extended form of κατηχέω (katēkhéō, “to catechize, instruct, teach by word of mouth”), from κατά (katá, “down”) + ἠχέω (ēkhéō, “to sound, resound”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈkætɪˌkɪzəm/

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catechism (plural catechisms)

1. A book, in question and answer form, summarizing the basic principles of Christianity.
2. A basic manual in some subject.
3. A set of questions designed to determine knowledge.
   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter V, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 43:

     ...the walls were covered with paper, whose original colour and pattern had long since merged in a dingy brown; over this were hung up some unframed drawings, and some shelves on which were ranged all the old school books, grammars, Pinnock's catechisms, and one or two French novels that had belonged to a former governess.

   • 1925, Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel‎:

     Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
     To catechism by a mind too strewn
     With petty cares to slightly understand
     What awful brain compels His awful hand.

• Not to be confused with cataclysm.

• “catechism”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “catechism”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• schematic

catechism n (plural catechisme)

1. Obsolete form of catehism.

• catechism in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN