Word.ws English Dictionary

coarb

coarb noun: the successor to the founder of a religious institution.

Noun

coarb (plural coarbs)

  1. (historical) The successor to the founder of a religious institution.
    • These abbots were sometimes bishops; but whether they were bishops or of lower rank in the ministry, their authority was inherent in their office of coarb.1920, H. J. Lawlor, St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh
  2. (historical) The head of one of the families composing an old Irish sept.

Forms of coarb

pluralcoarbs
alternative formcomarb
alternative formcomharb

Origin of coarb

Borrowed from Irish comharba.

Words formed from coarb

Questions about coarb

What does coarb mean?
Coarb means the successor to the founder of a religious institution.
What part of speech is coarb?
Coarb is a noun.
What is the plural of coarb?
The plural of coarb is coarbs.

Words near coarb in the dictionary

  1. coapting
  2. coaptive
  3. coapts
  4. coar
  5. coaration
  6. coarb
  7. coarbiter
  8. coarbiters
  9. coarbitrator
  10. coarbitrators
  11. coarbs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coarb (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: “coarb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coarb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.