vicar
/ˈvɪkɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.37 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
In the Church of England, the priest of a parish, receiving a salary or stipend but not tithes.
noun
In the Roman Catholic and some other churches, a cleric acting as local representative of a higher ranking member of the clergy.
Example Sentences
- "Near-synonyms: priest, rector, curate"
- "Hester Earle and Violet Wayne were moving about the aisle with bundles of wheat-ears and streamers of ivy, for the harvest thanksgiving was shortly to be celebrated, while the vicar stood waiting for their directions on the chancel steps with a great handful of crimson gladioli."
- "All this was extraordinarily distasteful to Churchill. It was ugly, gross. Never before had he felt such repulsion when the vicar displayed his characteristic bluntness or coarseness of speech. In the present connexion[…] such talk had been distressingly out of place."
- "For this [annual choir outing] the vicar traditionally hired a brake, an ancient, Edwardian, horse-drawn, bus-like vehicle which had plodded along for many years between Ramsgate and Pegwell Bay, carrying passengers who were in no hurry, until it became so unroadworthy that no horse could be persuaded to pull it on a regular basis."
- "Near-synonyms: proxy, representative, agent"
Etymology
From Middle English vicar, viker, vikyr, vicaire, vicare, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman vikare, vicare, vikaire, vikere and Old French vicaire (“deputy, second in command”), from Latin vicārius (“vicarious, substitute”). Doublet of vicarious. Displaced native Old English ġespelia.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈvɪkɚ/
Inflected Forms
vicars (plural)
vic. (alternative, abbreviation)