Catholicism

How to spell catholicism

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce catholicism

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does catholicism mean?

1. nounThe faith, doctrine, and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.
2. nounA broad, all-embracing range of interests, tastes, or sympathies.

Catholicism in a sentence

• She converted to catholicism shortly before her wedding.

• The catholicism of her reading covered everything from physics to poetry.

• The historian wrote a long study of catholicism in medieval Spain.

• Critics praised the catholicism of the festival programme, which spanned every musical genre.

Where does catholicism come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek katholikos, meaning 'universal' or 'general', which was formed from kata, 'in respect of' or 'concerning', and holos, 'whole' (the same root that gives us 'holism' and 'hologram'). Early Christian writers used 'catholic' to describe the whole, universal Church as distinct from local or breakaway groups. Latin took up catholicus, and the term passed into Old French and then English. The noun catholicism, built with the abstract suffix -ism, came into English use in the 1600s to name the system, faith, and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. In lowercase the word also kept the older flavour of its Greek root, describing broad, all-embracing tastes or sympathies. The tricky spelling sits in that quiet middle: the unstressed 'o' and the soft 'c' that sounds like an 's' before 'i', which is where most adults slip.

How the word is built

• cathol- (from Greek katholikos: universal, general)
• -ic (adjectival)
• -ism (system of belief or practice)