evangelical

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Of, relating to, or in accordance with the Christian gospel, especially one of the four gospel books of the New Testament.
• adjective Of, relating to, or being a Christian church believing in the Bible as the sole source of religious authority, in salvation only through conversion and spiritual regeneration, and in the necessity of public witness to faith.
• adjective Of or relating to the Lutheran churches in Germany and Switzerland.
• adjective Of or relating to all Protestant churches in Germany.
• adjective Of or relating to the group in the Church of England that stresses personal conversion and salvation by faith.
• adjective Characterized by ardent or crusading enthusiasm; zealous.
• noun A member of an evangelical church or party.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Of or pertaining to the gospel of Jesus Christ; comprised in or relating to the Christian revelation or dispensation: as, the evangelical books of the New Testament; the evangelical narrative or history; evangelical interpretation.
• Conformable to the requirements or principles of the gospel, especially as these are set forth in the New Testament; characterized by or manifesting the spirit of Christ; consonant with the Christian faith: as, evangelical doctrine.
• Adhering to and contending for the doctrines of the gospel: specifically applied to a section in the Protestant churches who profess to base their principles on Scripture alone, and who give distinctive prominence to such doctrines as the corruption of man's nature by the fall, atonement by the life, sufferings, and death of Christ, justification by faith in Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit in conversion and sanctification, and the divine exercise of free and unmerited grace.
• In a restricted sense, relating or pertaining to the spirituality of the gospel; seeking to promote conversion and a strictly religious life: as, evangelical preaching or labors.
• noun One who maintains evangelical principles.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun One of evangelical principles.
• adjective Contained in, or relating to, the four Gospels.
• adjective Belonging to, agreeable or consonant to, or contained in, the gospel, or the truth taught in the New Testament.
• adjective Earnest for the truth taught in the gospel; strict in interpreting Christian doctrine; preëminently orthodox; -- technically applied to that party in the Church of England, and in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which holds the doctrine of “Justification by Faith alone;” the Low Church party. The term is also applied to other religious bodies not regarded as orthodox.
• adjective Having or characterized by a zealous, crusading enthusiasm for a cause.
• adjective Adhering to a form of Christianity characterized by a conservative interpretation of the bible, but disavowing the label 'bdfundamentalist`'b8.
• adjective an alliance for mutual strengthening and common work, comprising Christians of different denominations and countries, organized in Liverpool, England, in 1845.
• adjective A church founded by a fusion of Lutherans and Calvinists in Germany in 1817.
• adjective a religious sect founded in Scotland in 1843 by the Rev. James Morison; -- called also Morisonians.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• adjective Pertaining to the gospel(s) of the Christian New Testament
• adjective Pertaining to the doctrines or teachings of the Christian gospel or Christianity in general.
• adjective Protestant; specifically, designating European churches which were originally Lutheran rather than Calvinist.
• adjective Pertaining to a movement in Protestant Christianity that stresses personal conversion and the authority of the Bible (evangelicalism).
• adjective Zealously enthusiastic.
• noun A member of an evangelical church
• noun An advocate of evangelicalism

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adjective marked by ardent or zealous enthusiasm for a cause
• adjective relating to or being a Christian church believing in personal conversion and the inerrancy of the Bible especially the 4 Gospels
• adjective of or pertaining to or in keeping with the Christian gospel especially as in the first 4 books of the New Testament