a doctrine that is believed to be of great importance; "Newton's writings were gospel for those who followed"
the four books in the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) that tell the story of Christ's life and teachings
an unquestionable truth; "his word was gospel"
folk music consisting of a genre of a cappella music originating with Black slaves in the United States and featuring call and response; influential on the development of other genres of popular music (especially soul)
(chemistry) any theory in which all matter is composed of tiny discrete finite indivisible indestructible particles; "the ancient Greek philosophers Democritus and Epicurus held atomic theories of the universe"
(psychology) a theory that reduces all mental phenomena to simple elements (sensations and feelings) that form complex ideas by association
excessively conventional and unimaginative and hence dull; "why is the middle class so stodgy, so utterly without a sense of humor?"; "a stodgy dinner party"
heavy and starchy and hard to digest; "stodgy food"; "a stodgy pudding served up when everyone was already full"
the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity; "you can lose your identity when you join the army"
exact sameness; "they shared an identity of interests"
the individual characteristics by which a thing or person is recognized or known; "geneticists only recently discovered the identity of the gene that causes it"; "it was too dark to determine his identity"; "she guessed the identity of his lover"
an operator that leaves unchanged the element on which it operates; "the identity under numerical multiplication is 1"
representing what is real; not abstract or ideal; "realistic portraiture"; "a realistic novel"; "in naturalistic colors"; "the school of naturalistic writers"