Definitions

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

  • adjective Not churchly; unbefitting a church; impious, heretical, etc.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

un- +‎ churchly

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Examples

  • On the great massive towers of Laon's cathedral is to be seen a most curious and unchurchly symbolism in the shape of great stone effigies of oxen, pointing north, east, south, and west.

    The Automobilist Abroad

  • This shows us where the parent stands, viz., in an unchurchly state, and radical to the very core.

    The Christian Home Samuel Philips

  • As for Mr. Calvert, in spite of Mr. Morris's predilections, he was of the opinion that of the two -- the unchurchly bishop and the pretty intrigante -- Monsieur de Talleyrand was the more admirable character.

    Calvert of Strathore Carter Goodloe

  • As it was utterly impossible to move the house back up the hill again, the surprised hill residents could only vent their rage in unchurchly language.

    The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 Various

  • Naturally, views would be divergent; naturally, the Church atmosphere would be impregnated with suspicion, fear, unchurchly feelings, and unwarranted prejudices.

    The History of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America: Comprising Its Organization, Subsequent Development and Present Status Charles Henry 1925

  • He started no world - religion; founded no church -- not even such a quite unchurchly church as that which came to exist on the teachings of Confucius.

    The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 Kenneth Morris 1908

  • The snore broke off in the middle and with a sharp and most unchurchly ejaculation, as if the snorer had been awakened suddenly and painfully.

    Galusha the Magnificent Joseph Crosby Lincoln 1907

  • That it has always done the reverse is Christianity's fundamental defect, and its chief absurdity in this day when the popular unchurchly conception of God has come to be one of some dignity.

    The Seeker Harry Leon Wilson 1903

  • Marshal, would walk in the sight of the world with staid step, clothed in gray, his hood concealing his fierce, unchurchly eyes; by night, inside the crocodile skin, he visited what places he chose, unhindered by the terrified dwellers, and after him came his followers of the

    The Dragon of Wantley His Tale Owen Wister 1899

  • I was struck by the shrewd concessions with which the speaker defined personal purity and the various false conceptions of it that pass current; abandoning the entrenched hills, so to speak, of his church's traditional rigor and of many conventional rules, and drawing after him into the unfortified plain his least persuadable hearers of whatever churchly or unchurchly prejudice, to surround them finally at one wide sweep and receive their unconditional surrender.

    Strong Hearts George Washington Cable 1884

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