English

Alternative forms

• paynym (13th-18th centuries)

Noun

paynim ‎(plural paynims)

1. (archaic) A pagan or heathen, especially a Muslim or Jew.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter xxxviij, in Le Morte Darthur, book IX:

     But there was one knyght that dyd merueyllously thre dayes / and he bare a black shelde / and of alle knyghtes that euer I sawe he preued the best knyȝt / thenne said Kyng mark that was syre launcelot or syre palomydes the paynym

   • 1530, Thomas More, The Confutation of Tyndale's Answer, Preface to the Christian reader :

     And if it be idolatry to do as the paynims did—make an idol “God”—it must needs be much worse idolatry to do as these heretics do,

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.3:

     To this his native soyle thou backe shalt bring, / Strongly to ayde his countrey to withstand / The powre of forreine Paynims which invade thy land.

   • 1964, Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like The Sun:

     St Helen’s bell rang reminders that she lived, a paynim or Mahometan, in the church’s shadow.