Zoolatries

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The practice of worship or reverence directed towards animals
2. A belief system that elevates animals to divine status, often involving rituals and customs centered around them
3. The act of venerating or honoring animals, treating them as sacred beings within a cultural or religious context

Etymology: Zoolatry is the worship or veneration of animals, and "zoolatries" is simply its plural. The word was borrowed from French "zoolâtrie", which was itself taken from New Latin "zoolatria". That New Latin form was built from two parts: "zoo-", from Greek "zōion" meaning "animal", and "-latry", from Greek "latreia", meaning worship or service. The same "-latry" ending appears in words like idolatry, the worship of idols, and Mariolatry, the veneration of the Virgin Mary. The pattern is a deliberate one. Scholars and writers in European languages often combined a Greek element with "-latry" to name a particular kind of devotion, so "zoolatry" follows the model of older terms such as "idolatry" and "bibliolatry". Its ancestry is therefore learned rather than everyday, a coinage assembled from classical building blocks to name a practice observers encountered in other cultures.