païen

Païen, païenne, and their plural forms païens and païennes, is a French term used to designate religious beliefs and practices that fall outside the main Abrahamic traditions, especially Christianity, and, more broadly, non-Christian or polytheistic paths. The word derives from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller" or "rural person," and, in late antiquity, was used by Christian authors to label adherents of polytheistic religions as distinct from Christians. Over time, païen came to describe pre-Christian European religions as well as later revivals and reinterpretations of those traditions.

In modern usage, païen is applied to a wide spectrum: ancient polytheistic traditions such as Greco-Roman, Norse, and Celtic paths; and contemporary neopagan movements that reconstruct or reinvent these traditions, including forms of Wicca, Druidry, and Hellenism, as well as eclectic nature-based spirituality. The term is generally descriptive in scholarly contexts but can carry pejorative or polemical undertones in everyday speech, depending on tone, speaker, and context.

The feminine form païenne exists, as do the plural païens and païennes. The related noun paganisme covers polytheistic and nature-based religions as a whole, while néopaganisme refers specifically to the modern revival and adaptation of these paths.