Word.ws English Dictionary

church rate

church rate noun: a tax raised by certain English parishes primarily for the maintenance of buildings of the Church of England, now voluntary but formerly levied on all residents regardless of denomination.

Noun

church rate (countable and uncountable, plural church rates)

  1. A tax raised by certain English parishes primarily for the maintenance of buildings of the Church of England, now voluntary but formerly levied on all residents regardless of denomination.
    • The abolition of church rate would endanger the existence of tithes, because whatever differences there may be between them in point of law and in point of fact, the difference with regard to conscience is the same.1859, The Present State of the Church Rate Question Exhibited […], page 13
    • I venture to say that no man of common sense and candour can read that evidence carefully, without having any prejudices he may have entertained against the good old English Custom of Church-rates utterly done away.1860 January 29, Thomas Thorp, Church-Rates: A Village Sermon […], published 1861, page 13

Forms of church rate

pluralchurch rates

Questions about church rate

What does church rate mean?
Church rate means a tax raised by certain English parishes primarily for the maintenance of buildings of the Church of England, now voluntary but formerly levied on all residents regardless of denomination.
What part of speech is church rate?
Church rate is a noun.
What is the plural of church rate?
The plural of church rate is church rates.

Words near church rate in the dictionary

  1. Church People
  2. church planter
  3. church planters
  4. church planting
  5. Church Point
  6. church rate
  7. church rates
  8. church school
  9. church schools
  10. church service
  11. church services

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: church rate (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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Cite this entry: “church rate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/church_rate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.