synod

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A council or an assembly of church officials or churches; an ecclesiastical council.
2. n. A council or an assembly.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An assembly of ecclesiastics or other church delegates duly convoked, pursuant to the law of the church, for the discussion and decision of ecclesiastical affairs; an ecclesiastical council. Synods or councils are of five kinds—ecumenical, general, national, provincial, and diocesan. For definition of their several characteristics, see council, 7.
2. n. Specifically In Presbyterian churches, the court which ranks above the presbytery, and either is subordinate to a general assembly (as in most of the larger denominations) or is itself the supreme court of the church. In the former case the presbyteries of the whole church are grouped into synods, each of which comprises all the parishes or congregations of a particular district. The members of the synod are in most cases the members of all the presbyteries within its bounds; but in some churches the court is composed of delegates from the presbyteries.
3. n. A meeting, convention, or council.
4. n. In astronomy, a conjunction of two or more planets or stars.
5. n. In the Reformed Dutch Church and in the Reformed German Church of the United States, a body composed of clerical and lay representatives from the classes, having complete supervision of the church and acting as the highest judicatory.
6. n. In the Lutheran Ch., the district council, composed of all the ministers and one lay representative from each congregation in the district
7. n. In the Reformed German Ch., a delegated body of ministers and elders from adjacent classes, subject to the general synod.

Wiktionary

1. n. An ecclesiastic council or meeting to consult on church matters.
2. n. An administrative division of churches, either the entire denomination, as in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, or a mid-level division (middle judicatory, district) as in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
3. n. An assembly or council having civil authority; a legislative body.
4. n. astronomy A conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Eccl. Hist.) An ecclesiastic council or meeting to consult on church matters.
2. n. An assembly or council having civil authority; a legislative body.
3. n. (Astron.), rare A conjunction of two or more of the heavenly bodies.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a council convened to discuss ecclesiastical business