Definitions

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

  • noun Roman Catholic Church The bishop of Rome and head of the Roman Catholic Church.
  • noun Eastern Orthodox Church The patriarch of Alexandria.
  • noun The Coptic patriarch of Alexandria.
  • noun The male head of some non-Christian religions.
  • noun A person considered to have unquestioned authority.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The blacktail, a fish: same as ruff.
  • noun The bullfinch.
  • noun The red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio.
  • noun The puffin, Fratercula arctica. Montagu.
  • noun The painted finch, or nonpareil. See cut under Passcrina.
  • noun The Bishop of Rome as head of the Roman Catholic Church and hierarchy.
  • noun The patriarch of Alexandria.
  • noun A priest in the Greek or Russian Church.
  • noun The head of any church or ecclesiastical system.

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

  • noun obsolete Any ecclesiastic, esp. a bishop.
  • noun The bishop of Rome, the head of the Roman Catholic Church. See Note under Cardinal.
  • noun A parish priest, or a chaplain, of the Greek Church.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A fish; the ruff.
  • noun a game at cards played on a round board with compartments.
  • noun the gland surrounded with fat in the middle of the thigh of an ox or sheep.
  • noun the rump, or uropygium, of a bird. See Uropygium.
  • noun to adhere more stringently to Roman Catholic practices and doctrine than is required by church doctrine; -- usually used in a negative sense to mean, to be excessively pious.

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

  • noun Christianity The bishop of Rome; the head of the Roman Catholic church.
  • noun by extension The head of any religion.
  • noun The Bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria.
  • noun A small Eurasian freshwater fish, Gymnocephalus cernua.
  • noun Any of various birds having reddish plumage on the breast, especially the bullfinch.
  • noun An Eastern Orthodox priest.

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

  • noun the head of the Roman Catholic Church
  • noun English poet and satirist (1688-1744)

Etymologies

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

[Middle English, from Old English pāpa, from Late Latin, from Latin, father (title of bishops), from Greek pappās; see papa in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English pāpa, from Medieval Latin papa, from Ancient Greek παπάς (papás), variant of πάππας (páppas, "daddy, papa").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old Church Slavonic попъ (whence Russian поп (pop)}}, Polish pop), from Gothic 𐍀𐌰𐍀𐌰 ("priest"), from Byzantine Greek as etymology 1, above.

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Examples

  • He received a "Medal of Peace" from Pope John Paul I, that guy who was pope for about ten minutes, but found time to give a peace award to a man who invented a filthy weapon of mass-death.

    Tallulah Morehead: Dead Folks 2010: Everyone's Pushing Up Roses Tallulah Morehead 2011

  • He received a "Medal of Peace" from Pope John Paul I, that guy who was pope for about ten minutes, but found time to give a peace award to a man who invented a filthy weapon of mass-death.

    Tallulah Morehead: Dead Folks 2010: Everyone's Pushing Up Roses Tallulah Morehead 2011

  • VATICAN CITY — A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip."

    Vatican Defends Pope Benedict Stacy Meichtry 2010

  • And finally, that the canonization process of Pope John Paul II be halted until there is a full independent investigation of whether the late pope was involved in cover-ups of Catholic clergy.

    Vatican Celebrations Overshadowed By Scandals 2010

  • VATICAN CITY — A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip."

    Vatican Defends Pope Benedict Stacy Meichtry 2010

  • VATICAN CITY — A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip."

    In Easter Mass, Vatican Defends Benedict Stacy Meichtry 2010

  • Indeed, in the wake of much praise for Mayor Bloomberg's defense of civil and religious liberty, let me modestly suggest that he next go to Rome in October and deliver a sequel at Pope Benedict XVI's synod on what the pope recently called the "urgent" plight of Christian minorities in the Middle East.

    Tolerance at Ground Zero 2010

  • VATICAN CITY — A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip."

    Vatican Defends Pope Benedict Stacy Meichtry 2010

  • After a New York Times story reported that Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) failed to defrock a priest who abused 200 deaf children in Wisconsin, the pope lashed out against the news media.

    A Woman’s Place Is In The Church 2010

  • VATICAN CITY — A senior Vatican cardinal defended Pope Benedict during an Easter Mass in St. Peter's Square attended by the pope, dismissing criticism of the pontiff's handling of the sexual-abuse crisis as "gossip."

    Vatican Defends Pope Benedict Stacy Meichtry 2010

Comments

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  • The Pope and the Dope.

    April 17, 2008

  • A long time ago, I was a bit of a full-on Christian. I didn't like swearing, so I took to bellowing "pope" instead of "fuck" or somesuch.

    As I saw it, this highlighted the fact that it was ok for people to say "Jesus" as a swearword, but not "pope".

    What a wanker I was.

    September 19, 2008

  • When I placed brackets around pope's nose and parson's nose (here and below) they link to "pope" and "parson" minus the apostrophe and nose.

    June 17, 2015