as in missioner
a person who is sent especially to a foreign country to do religious work (such as converting people to the religion or ministering to the sick)
The missionaries sent to the island were ultimately unsuccessful in converting the native residents.
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as in apostolic
relating to missionaries or their work
The church organizes missionary trips to a variety of countries.
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Examples of missionary in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Damaly Gonzalez, refinery29.com, 3 Apr. 2024
Few stock characters in contemporary film and literary discourse come with more baked-in connotations than the white missionary who sails to a remote island with the hopes of convincing its Indigenous people to abandon their own religions.
—Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 12 July 2024
Marcus D. Smith, Sacramento Bee, 14 June 2024
For a progressive contingent of the latter, the diversity of the world’s cultures served the case against the missionary movement; surely there was no good reason to impose the Christian mythos upon other cultures that had perfectly functional mythoi of their own.
—John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for missionary 
Noun
This stark difference is not due to a natural change but a result of violence against Indigenous people through European colonial practices, like forcing them into Spanish-only boarding schools that Christian missionaries established.
—Damaly Gonzalez, refinery29.com, 3 Apr. 2024
Few stock characters in contemporary film and literary discourse come with more baked-in connotations than the white missionary who sails to a remote island with the hopes of convincing its Indigenous people to abandon their own religions.
—Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 12 July 2024
Adjective
Reed’s uncle, who McGee said is a missionary, informed them that Ugandan villages lacked water and needed wells to be built.
—Marcus D. Smith, Sacramento Bee, 14 June 2024
For a progressive contingent of the latter, the diversity of the world’s cultures served the case against the missionary movement; surely there was no good reason to impose the Christian mythos upon other cultures that had perfectly functional mythoi of their own.
—John Ganz, Harper's Magazine, 22 May 2024
See all Example Sentences for missionary
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'missionary.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Missionary.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/missionary. Accessed 11 Aug. 2024.
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