Word.ws English Dictionary

church-ales

church-ales is the plural of church-ale.

Meaning of church-ale

Noun

church-ale (countable and uncountable, plural church-ales)

  1. (historical) A church or parish festival (as in commemoration of the dedication of a church), at which much ale was drunk.
    • If many be at an Alehouse , a Christmaſſe dinner, or Churchale, and ( without any intention of an Affray) they ſodainly fall together by the eares[…]1683, John Keble, An Assistance to Justices of the Peace […]
  2. The strong ale brewed for this purpose.

Questions about church-ales

What is church-ales the plural of?
Church-ales is the plural of church-ale.

Words near church-ales in the dictionary

  1. church towers
  2. Church Wilne
  3. church windows
  4. Church with Chapel Brampton
  5. church-ale
  6. church-ales
  7. church-door
  8. church-doors
  9. church-goer
  10. church-goers
  11. church-going

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: church-ales (page history and authors); church-ale (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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