archbishop
/ˌɑː(ɹ)t͡ʃˈbɪʃəp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.82 in modern English
22
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A senior bishop who is in charge of an archdiocese, and presides over a group of dioceses called a province (in Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, etc.)
Example Sentences
- "Thereupon I declared that I was a heretic and a barbarian—“Je suis hérétique et barbare,” I said, “and that these archbishops and cardinals and monsignors, and the rest of them, meant nothing at all to me."
- "He passed over several archbishops who would traditionally become cardinals to promote Gregory. He also moved Augustine Tolton, who died in 1897 after becoming the first African American priest, one step closer to sainthood."
- "One of those 19 candidates was Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the archbishop of St. Louis from 2004 to 2008."
Etymology
From Middle English erchebischop, archebischop, from Old English arċebisċop (“archbishop”), from Late Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin archiepiscopus, from Ancient Greek ἀρχιεπίσκοπος (arkhiepískopos), from ἀρχι- (arkhi-, “first, chief”) + ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos, “overseer”), from ἐπισκοπέω (episkopéō, “to watch over”), from ἐπί (epí, “over”) + σκοπέω (skopéō, “to examine”), equivalent to arch- + bishop.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: erchebischop, arċebisċop, -, archiepiscopus, ἀρχιεπίσκοπος
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌɑː(ɹ)t͡ʃˈbɪʃəp/
- British English: /ˌɑː(ɹ)t͡ʃˈbɪʃəp/
Inflected Forms
archbishops (plural)
abp. (alternative)