vatican
/ˈvæ.tɪ.kən/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.79 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The papal government; the papacy, the Holy See.
name
A city-state in Southern Europe, an enclave within the city of Rome, Italy.
name
The Vatican Hill in Rome, where the palace and Vatican City are located.
adj
Relating to the Vatican City state.
Example Sentences
- "Unlike most other countries in the world, citizenship in Vatican City isn’t solely provided to people that are born in the country. As there are no hospitals in the Vatican State, virtually no one is born in there. Instead, Vatican citizenship is provided on a ‘jus officii’ basis."
- "He [Caligula] began to build a circus upon the Vatican."
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Latin Vātī̆cānus (“Vatican Hill”), further etymology unknown. The connection to vāticinārī (“to prophesy, oracle”) is folk-etymological.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈvæ.tɪ.kən/
- British English: /ˈvæ.tɪ.kən/
Inflected Forms
the Vatican (canonical)