Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A man who is a cleric.
  • noun A man who is a member of a church.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An ecclesiastic; a clergyman; one who ministers in sacred things.
  • noun An adherent of the church; specifically, in England, a member of the Church of England, as distinguished from a dissenter; in the United States, a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as distinguished from a member of any other church.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An ecclesiastic or clergyman.
  • noun An Episcopalian, or a member of the Established Church of England.
  • noun One was is attached to, or attends, church.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person (originally a man) of authority in a religious organization; a cleric.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a clergyman or other person in religious orders

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The churchman is the only true and final judge on his own doctrine, and we neither know nor care to know the facts; but we are as good judges as he of the feeling, and we are at full liberty to feel that such a Last

    Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres Henry Adams 1878

  • But they knew well, that the churchman was a far cunninger, as well as a more learned, man than themselves.

    Hereward, the Last of the English Charles Kingsley 1847

  • Certes, we can say none otherwise than that the king's magnificence was a virtue, whilst that of the churchman was a miracle, inasmuch as the clergy are all exceeding niggardly, nay, far more so than women, and sworn enemies of all manner of liberality; and albeit all men naturally hunger after vengeance for affronts received, we see churchmen, for all they preach patience and especially commend the remission of offences, pursue it more eagerly than other folk.

    The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio 1344

  • For that kind of churchman, conventionally engineered progress is just a matter of time.

    Cloudy Outlook Argent 2006

  • We had previously travelled with a different kind of churchman, to whom we were especially commended -

    Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 1843-1920. Recollections Grave and Gay 1911

  • In support of the latter, he quotes Richard Hooker -- no radical, but a "profoundly traditional" churchman: "Where the lawe doth give dominion, who doubteth that the King who receiveth it is under the lawe?"

    OpEdNews - OpEdNews.Com Progressive, Tough Liberal News and Opinion 2010

  • They are ail regarded with the barely tolérant air of the "churchman" of ail âges.

    De la philosophie de la nature 1770

  • A 9th century churchman called Rimbert - later archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen – was planning to leave on a missionary journey to the northern reaches of Scandinavia.

    August 4th, 2009 m_francis 2009

  • St. Ignatius was the first churchman to talk about the church's role in marriage (and he did so in a couple of passing comments).

    Douglas Kmiec comes out against Proposition 8... 2009

  • But as Tutu defied his years to dance with the Soweto Gospel Choir, half an hour's drive away, another churchman had just completed a month-long hunger strike.

    Desmond Tutu's dreams for Cape Town fade as informal apartheid grips the city 2011

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