Definitions

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

  • noun A bishop elected or appointed as an assistant to the bishop or ordinary of a diocese, having administrative and episcopal responsibilities but no jurisdictional functions.
  • noun A bishop regarded in position as subordinate to an archbishop or a metropolitan.
  • adjective Of, being, or relating to a suffragan.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Assisting; assistant; of or pertaining to a suffragan: as, a suffragan bishop; a suffragan see.
  • noun An auxiliary bishop, especially one with no right of ordinary jurisdiction; in the Ch. of Eng., a bishop who has been consecrated to assist the ordinary bishop of a see in a particular part of his diocese, like the ancient chorepiscopus (which see).
  • noun A title of every ordinary bishop with respect to the archbishop or metropolitan who is his superior.

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

  • noun An assistant.
  • noun (Eccl.) A bishop considered as an assistant, or as subject, to his metropolitan; an assistant bishop.
  • adjective Assisting; assistant.

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

  • noun A bishop seen in relation to his archbishop or metropolitan province (which may summon him for support, to attend synods etc.).
  • noun An auxiliary bishop.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to a suffragan.

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

  • noun an assistant or subordinate bishop of a diocese

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin suffrāgāneus, voting, supporting, from Latin suffrāgium, support, right to vote, from suffrāgārī, to express support; see bhreg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman, Old French suffragam, from (the stem of) Latin suffrāgium ("suffrage").

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