Clergy

How to spell clergy

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce clergy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clergy mean?

1. nounThe body of people ordained for religious duties, such as priests, ministers, and rabbis, regarded collectively.

Clergy in a sentence

• Members of the local clergy attended the memorial service together.

• The new law affects how the clergy are taxed on their housing.

Where does clergy come from?

Language of origin: French

This word travelled into English through Old French clergie, a word that meant both 'learning' and 'the body of churchmen', reflecting an age when the literate class and the church were largely the same people. The deeper root is the Late Latin clericus, meaning 'a clergyman' or 'priest', which English also kept separately as 'clerk'. Clericus in turn came from the Greek klerikos, 'belonging to the clergy', built on kleros, which literally meant 'a lot' or 'an inheritance', the kind drawn by casting lots. The religious sense is said to echo the biblical Levites, whose 'lot' or inheritance was service to God rather than land. English adopted the word around the year 1200, and the spelling preserves the soft -gy ending of its French ancestor, which is the part writers most often second-guess.

How the word is built

• clerg- (from Latin clericus 'clergyman', from Greek kleros 'lot, inheritance')
• -y (collective noun suffix)