Priesthood

How to spell priesthood

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce priesthood

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does priesthood mean?

1. nounThe office, function, or status of being a priest.
2. nounPriests considered together as a body or class.

Priesthood in a sentence

• He entered the priesthood after years of study at the seminary.

• The local priesthood met to discuss changes to the weekend services.

• Ordination marks a formal entry into the priesthood.

• Reforms reduced the influence the priesthood once held over the village.

Where does priesthood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word joins two Old English elements: prēost, meaning 'priest', and hād, meaning 'state, rank, or condition'. The first part travelled a long way before reaching English: prēost descends through Germanic from the Latin presbyter, which in turn came from the Greek presbyteros, literally 'an elder' or 'older man', from presbys 'old'. The suffix -hād (modern -hood) once stood as its own word meaning a person's rank or quality, and it survives only as an ending today in words such as childhood, neighbourhood, and brotherhood. So priesthood originally described the office or condition of being a priest, a sense it has kept ever since the word appears in early medieval English writing. The silent link to that Greek 'elder' is also why related church words like 'presbyter' and 'Presbyterian' look so different from 'priest', even though they share one ancestor.

How the word is built

• priest (ordained minister)
• -hood (state or condition suffix)