clerisy
/ˈklɛɹɪsi/
clerisy noun: an elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
Noun
clerisy (countable and uncountable, plural clerisies)
- An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
- 2003: By the nineteenth-century clerisy […] Christianity itself, yoked to material civilization, came to be questioned as gross and vulgar. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 432)
- 2016: Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language. — George F. Will, Washington Post, 18 Nov, 2016
- Synonyms:
- intelligentsia
- The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.
- Few men have ever had a stronger conviction of their clerisy, of their belonging to the clerkly caste of the responsibles.1986, Kenneth Rexroth, Bradford Morrow, Classics Revisited, page 174
clerisy meaning in Tamil and Bengali
clerisy in Tamil
- கற்றோராயம், கற்றோர் குழு, பண்பாட்டுக் காவலர்
clerisy in Bengali
- বুদ্ধিজীবীদের একটি অভিজাত দল, বিদ্বান ব্যক্তিবর্গ, শিক্ষিত সমাজ, যাজক সম্প্রদায়, বা তাদের মতামত, সাধারণ মানুষের বিপরীতে
Synonyms of clerisy
Forms of clerisy
| plural | clerisies |
|---|
Origin of clerisy
From Ancient Greek κλῆρος (klêros) + -isy. Introduced by Coleridge, based on German Clerisei (modern Klerisei), from Late Latin clēricus.
Words that rhyme with clerisy
Questions about clerisy
- What does clerisy mean?
- Clerisy means an elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
- What is clerisy in Tamil?
- Clerisy in Tamil is கற்றோராயம், கற்றோர் குழு, பண்பாட்டுக் காவலர். See Clerisy meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is clerisy?
- Clerisy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce clerisy?
- Clerisy is pronounced /ˈklɛɹɪsi/.
- What is the plural of clerisy?
- The plural of clerisy is clerisies.
Words near clerisy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clerisy (page history and authors); clerisy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clerisy (Bengali Wiktionary) (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: “clerisy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clerisy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.