English - Alternative Forms

• churche (obsolete)

English - Etymology

From Middle English chirche, from Old English ċiriċe (“church”), from Proto-Germanic *kirikǭ, an early borrowing of Ancient Greek κυριακόν (kuriakón), neuter form of κυριακός (kuriakós, “belonging to the lord”), from κύριος (kúrios, “ruler, lord”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱēw-, *ḱwā- (“to swell, spread out, be strong, prevail”).

English - Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɝt͡ʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)tʃ

English - Noun

church (countable and uncountable, plural churches)

1. (countable) A Christian house of worship; a building where religious services take place. [from 9th c.]

   There is a lovely little church in the valley.

   This building used to be a church before being converted into a library.

2. Christians collectively seen as a single spiritual community; Christianity. [from 9th c.]

   These worshippers make up the Church of Christ.

   • Acts 20:28, New International Version:

     Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

3. (countable) A local group of people who follow the same Christian religious beliefs, local or general. [from 9th c.]
4. (countable) A particular denomination of Christianity. [from 9th c.]

   The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534.

5. (uncountable, countable, as bare noun) Christian worship held at a church; service. [from 10th c.]
6. A (non-Christian) religion; a religious group. [from 16th c.]
   • 2007, Scott A. Merriman, Religion and the Law in America, page 313

     Among these, the church must investigate fundemental questions, […]

   She goes to a Wiccan church down the road.

Usage notes

• Several senses of church are routinely used in prepositional phrases as a bare noun, without a determiner or article. This is like home and unlike house.

Synonyms

• (building): chapel (small church), kirk (Scotland)
• (group of worshipers): congregation

Hypernyms

• (religious group): religion

Coordinate terms

• mosque, synagogue, temple, gurdwara, hof, fire temple, circle, mandir, jinja, House of Worship, monastery, heiau

Derived terms

Look at pages starting with church.

Translations

English - Verb

church (third-person singular simple present churches, present participle churching, simple past and past participle churched)

1. (transitive, now historical) To conduct a religious service for (a woman) after childbirth. [from 15^thc.]
   • 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, Book XI, chapter Tercium:

     Thenne after this lady was delyuerd and chirched / there came a knyghte vnto her / his name was sire Bromel la pleche / the whiche was a grete lord and he hadde loued that lady longe / and he euermore desyred her to wedde her / and soo by no meane she coude putte hym of

   • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society 2012, page 36:

     Nor did it [the Church] accept that the woman should stay indoors until she had been churched.

2. (transitive) To educate someone religiously, as in in a church.

Derived terms

• churching of women

English - See Also

• Appendix:Ecclesiastical terms

قافية