Con·ver·so

(kən-vĕr′sō)

n. pl. Con·ver·sos

A Spanish or Portuguese Jew who converted outwardly to Christianity in the late Middle Ages so as to avoid persecution or expulsion, though often continuing to practice Judaism in secret.

[Spanish, a convert, from converso, converted, from Medieval Latin conversus, from Latin, past participle of convertere, to turn around, convert; see convert.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

converso

(kɒnˈvɜːsəʊ)

a medieval Spanish Jew who converted to Catholicism, usually in order to avoid persecution from either the Spanish Inquisition or the Portugese Inquisition

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

Converso - (medieval Spain and Portugal) a Jew or Moor who professed to convert to Christianity in order to avoid persecution or expulsion

convert - a person who has been converted to another religious or political belief

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Now this conversation in our historian must be universal, that is, with all ranks and degrees of men; for the knowledge of what is called high life will not instruct him in low; nor, e converso , will his being acquainted with the inferior part of mankind teach him the manners of the superior.

View in context

The 1492 Edict of Expulsion was instituted mainly to eliminate the influence of practicing Jews on Spain's large converso population and ensure they did not revert to Judaism.

Spanish Inquisition: 527 Years Ago, Jews in Spain were Forced to Make an Impossible Choice

An embodiment of philological as well as zoological hybridity, the alborayco is a multilayered allegory for converso heterodoxy, which, as this article demonstrates, functioned as a harbinger of the Apocalypse.

CONVERSION AND APOCALYPSE: THE VISUAL ARCHIVE OF THE LIBRO DEL ALBORAYQUE

The second section, "Conversos and the Threat of Sameness" traces how pro-establishment discourses constructed ideas of ethnic and religious difference and applied them to the ambiguous converso subjects, who by the late 1500s had apparently become indistinguishable from Old Christians.

Christina H. Lee. The Anxiety of Sameness in Early Modern Spain

That same year, Christopher Columbus set sail for America, and with him went Luis de Torres, an interpreter and a converso, a man forced by the Inquisition to convert to Catholicism while still secretly practicing the Jewish faith.

Legacy of the Inquisition

In that year, a charitable confraternity (cofradia de la Caridad) routed their procession of the Virgin through the converso neighborhood of the city.

Enemies in the Plaza: Urban Spectacle and the End of Spanish Frontier Culture, 1460-1492

Ademas, los personajes de Lazaro y el simio son el testimonio del autor que los ha creado y surgen del sentimiento de desarraigo en que viven Franz Kafka y el autor converso.

DOS SATIRAS SOBRE LA ASIMILACION: LAZARILLO DE TORMES E INFORME PARA UNA ACADEMIA DE FRANZ KAFKA

'Humayo' edged out films like Mike Mills' '20th Century Women,' Elena Martin's 'Julia Ist,' Ben Wheatley's 'Free Fire' and David Arratibel's 'Converso' in the public voting.

'Humayo' wins audience award in Barcelona