Shammai, an eminent Jewish rabbi of the time of Herod, who held the position of supreme judge in the Sanhedrim under the presidency of Hillel (q.v.), and whose narrow, rigid orthodoxy and repressive policy became the leading principles of his school, “the House of Shammai,” which, however, carried the system to a pitch of fanatical zeal not contemplated by its originator.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Shamanism * Shamrock