consistory
/kənˈsɪstəɹi/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.33 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The spiritual court of a diocesan bishop held before his chancellor or commissioner in his cathedral church or elsewhere.
noun
An assembly of prelates; a session of the College of Cardinals at Rome.
noun
A church tribunal or governing body, especially of elders in a Reformed church.
Example Sentences
- "To council summons all his mighty peers, / Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, / A gloomy consistory."
- "1860-1876, Walter Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury In 1551 we find Bertholier excommunicated by the consistory because he would not allow that he had done wrong in asserting that he was as good a man as Calvin"
- "Pius […][was] then hearing of causes in consistory."
- "And so were many greate and heighnous maters Obiected against S. Ambrose, because he refused to haue the cause betwene himselfe and the Heretike Auxentius, to be tried in the Consistorie of the Emperour, before Secular Iudges."
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English consistorie, from Old Northern French consistorie (“secular tribunal”) (Old French consistoire), and Late Latin consistorium (“waiting room, meeting place of the imperial council”). Meaning "Church council" is from early 14th century. By surface analysis, consist + -ory.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: consistorie, consistorium