- 1
A catechism is a set of questions and answers about the Christian faith. People learn it, often by heart, when they are preparing to become full members of a church. The teacher asks; the answers. That question-and-answer shape is the point — it is not a story and not a free talk, but a fixed set you are meant to know. Though actually, some people also use catechism with a dry smile for any official list of “right answers” outside church, as if a party or a school had its own church book. In class you will almost always meet the church meaning.
教義問答；要理問答（天主教較常這樣叫）
組成從晚期拉丁文 catechismus 來，再往上是古希臘文：κατά（kata，「往下」）+ ἠχέω（ēkhéō，「發聲、響起」）。舊義是用口耳把教導「灌進」人耳裡。後來變成「用問答來教」，再變成這本問答書的名字。
同家族的字
- catechizethe verb: to teach by those church questions and answers
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
catechismnoun/ˈkætɪˌkɪzəm/
- 1
A book, in question and answer form, summarizing the basic principles of Christianity.
- 2
A basic manual in some subject.
- 3
A set of questions designed to determine knowledge.
- ...the walls were covered with paper, whose original colour and pattern had long since merged in a dingy brown; over this were hung up some unframed drawings, and some shelves on which were ranged all the old school books, grammars, Pinnock's catechisms, and one or two French novels that had belonged to a former governess.
- Inscrutable His ways are, and immune To catechism by a mind too strewn With petty cares to slightly understand What awful brain compels His awful hand.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。