Priest

How to spell priest

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce priest

What does priest mean?

1. nounAn ordained minister of a religion, authorised to perform sacred rites and ceremonies.

Priest in a sentence

• The priest blessed the congregation before the service ended.

• A young priest was assigned to the parish last spring.

Where does priest come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word priest comes into English from the Old English preost, which was itself a borrowing from the Latin presbyter. That Latin term was taken directly from the Greek presbyteros, meaning literally 'an elder' or 'an older man', built on presbys 'old'. In the early Christian communities a presbyteros was a senior member who led the congregation, and over the centuries the title narrowed to mean an ordained minister authorised to perform sacred rites. The same Greek root survives in the more formal English word 'presbyter' and in 'Presbyterian'. The long detour from presbyteros to the short, two-syllable priest explains why so little of the original survives in the spelling, while the 'ie' sequence is the modern trap, since it follows the familiar but unreliable 'i before e' pattern.

How the word is built

• priest (single root, from Greek presbyteros: elder)