church
/t͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: 5.16 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A Christian house of worship; a building where Christian religious services take place.
Countable
noun
Christians collectively seen as a single spiritual community; Christianity; Christendom.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A local group of people who follow the same Christian religious beliefs, local or general.
Countable
noun
Organized religion in general or a specific religion considered as a political institution.
Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "There is a lovely little church in the valley."
- "This building used to be a church before being converted into a library."
- "He got the message and was in church the next Sunday. We need to stay in church with the fellowship of others in order to keep the fire of faith burning brightly."
- "Most are descended from low-caste Hindus who converted in the 19th century, when many of the country’s hundred or so British colonial-era churches were built. […] Built in the shape of a cross, the pink-brick-and-sandstone church soars above Mall Road, the city’s main thoroughfare."
- "These worshippers make up the Church of Christ."
- "Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood."
Etymology
From Middle English chirche, from Old English ċiriċe (“church”), from Proto-West Germanic *kirikā, 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 *ḱewh₁- (“to swell, spread out, be strong, prevail”). Doublet of kirk. Additional etymological information For vowel evolution, see bury. Ancient Greek κυριακόν (kuriakón) was used of houses of Christian worship since circa 300 CE, especially in the East, though it was less common in this sense than ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía, “congregation”) or βασιλική (basilikḗ, “royal thing”). An example of the direct Greek-to-Germanic progress of many Christian words, possibly via the Goths; it was probably used by West Germanic people in their pre-Christian period. Cognate with Scots kirk (“church”), West Frisian tsjerke (“church”), Saterland Frisian Säärke (“church”), Dutch kerk (“church”), German Kirche (“church”), Danish kirke (“church”), Swedish kyrka (“church”), Norwegian Bokmål kirke, Norwegian Nynorsk kyrkje (“church”), and Faroese and Icelandic kirkja (“church”). Also picked up by Slavic, via Old High German chirihha (compare Old Church Slavonic црькꙑ (crĭky), Bulgarian църква (cărkva), Russian це́рковь (cérkovʹ)). Romance and Celtic languages use descendants of Latin ecclēsia.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /t͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/
- British English: /t͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Places, People.