Definition of "god"

When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.

2002, Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby

In 1951 Stalin was a god and the official tone towards the West was one of total antagonism.

1959, Percy E. Corbett, Law in Diplomacy, page 105

Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.

a. 1918, Wilfred Owen, Disabled

The gods usually have several wizards, or "immortals," to assist them in building the MUD.

1996, Andy Eddy, Internet after hours

The wizzes are only the junior grade of the MUD illuminati. The people who attain the senior grade of MUD freemasonry by starting their own MUD, with all due hubris, are known as gods.

2003, David Lojek, Emote to the Max, page 11

And ſuch is to beare yͤ names of god with croſſes betwene ech name about them.

1530, William Tyndall, “An aunſwere vnto Syr Thomas Mores Dialogue”, in The whole workes of W. Tyndall […], published 1573, page 271

“I say fuck it. Fuck god and fuck all the religions that praise him.”

2005, Diane L. Gabriel, Angel of My Heart, page 46

For if the necessity of events is bound up with god’s knowledge, if there is no necessity in events, the divine knowledge is abolished. And whose mind is so distorted by such an impious idea that he would dare to say this of god?

2010 , Boethius, translated by Andrew Smith, On Aristotle, On Interpretation 1–3, page 136

If I ask you if you believe in god, I just want to know if you have an imaginary omnipotent friend who you really believe lives outside of you in the real world.

2012, Penn Jillette, God, No!: Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other Magical Tales, page 77

Perhaps what is needed is just the right attitude: one’s heart should be open to god in order to hear his messages. […] It does not matter: such claims only prove my point about the communicative shortcomings of so-called divine signs.

2016, Andrew Sneddon, A is for Atheist: An A to Z of the Godfree Life‎

This is the formulation of the moral end as ‘assimilation to god’, which would become standard in later Platonism.

2017, Myrto Hatzimichali, “Stoicism and Platonism in ‘Arius Didymus’”, in Troels Engberg-Pedersen, editor, From Stoicism to Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–100 CE, page 91

CORIOLANUS: This last old man, / Whom with a crack'd heart I have sent to Rome, / Loved me above the measure of a father; / Nay, godded me, indeed.

1608, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Coriolanus, act V, scene III

To men the first necessity is gods; / And if the gods were not, / " Man would invent them, tho' they godded stones.

a. 1866, Edward Bulwer Lytton, "Death and Sisyphus".

"Godded him up" ... It's the fear of discerning journalists: Does coverage of athletic stars, on field and off, approach beatification of the living?

2001, Conrad C. Fink, Sportswriting: The Lively Game, page 78

Then got he bow and shafts of gold and lead, / In which so fell and puissant he grew, / That Jove himselfe his powre began to dread, / And, taking up to heaven, him godded new.

1595, Edmund Spenser, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

The superman marks the end of a road on which we find such figures as the "godded man" of English Reformation mystics

1951, Eric Voegelin, Dante Germino ed., The New Science of Politics: An Introduction, published 1987, page 125

"She is so lately godded that she is still a rather poor goddess, Stranger.["]

1956, C. S. Lewis, Fritz Eichenberg, Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold, page 241