Word.ws English Dictionary

be in orders

be in orders verb: to be an ordained priest; to have taken the holy orders, the sacrament to become a priest.

Verb

be in orders (highly irregular)

  1. (irregular) To be an ordained priest; to have taken the holy orders, the sacrament to become a priest
    • [H]e was not at all the person to knock into a gutter, for though not in orders, he had the air of being on the verge of them, and his features, as well as his clothes, had the clerical cut.1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, I [Uniform ed., p. 18]

Questions about be in orders

What does be in orders mean?
Be in orders means to be an ordained priest; to have taken the holy orders, the sacrament to become a priest.
What part of speech is be in orders?
Be in orders is a verb.

Words near be in orders in the dictionary

  1. be here for
  2. be in and out
  3. be in each other's pockets
  4. be in for
  5. be in luck
  6. be in orders
  7. be in the pocket of someone
  8. be into
  9. be it as it may
  10. be it so
  11. be it what it would

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: be in orders (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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