Clergyman

How to spell clergyman

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce clergyman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clergyman mean?

1. nounA man who is an ordained minister of a Christian church.

Clergyman in a sentence

• The local clergyman visited the village school every Friday morning.

• A retired clergyman now volunteers as a hospital chaplain.

Where does clergyman come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a compound of 'clergy' and 'man'. The first part traces back through Old French 'clergie' to the Latin 'clericus', meaning a clergyman or cleric, which itself came from the Greek 'klerikos', literally 'belonging to the lot or inheritance'. That curious sense arose because early Christians described the ministry as the portion or share allotted to those called to it, drawing on the Greek 'kleros', meaning 'a lot' or 'an allotted inheritance'. The everyday tail '-man' is simply the native Old English 'mann', meaning a human being or adult male. The word settled into English in the 1500s, and the spelling trap lies in the middle 'gy': the soft 'g' sounds like a 'j', so writers can be tempted to write 'clergeman' or 'clergiman', when the correct form keeps the 'y' from 'clergy'.

How the word is built

• clergy (ordained ministers, from Latin clericus 'cleric')
• -man (man, person)