Word.ws English Dictionary

episcopate

/ɪˈpɪskəpət/

episcopate noun: bishops seen as a group.

Noun

episcopate (plural episcopates)

  1. Bishops seen as a group.
    • The American Roman Catholic episcopate meets regularly.
  2. The tenure in office of a bishop.
    • Bishop Smith's episcopate ran for more than 30 years.
  3. (rare) A bishop's jurisdiction, the extent of his diocese.
    Synonyms:
    bishopric

Verb

episcopate (third-person singular simple present episcopates, present participle episcopating, simple past and past participle episcopated)

  1. (intransitive) To act as a bishop.

Synonyms of episcopate

All synonyms of episcopate

Forms of episcopate

Noun
pluralepiscopates
Verb
third-person singular presentepiscopates
present participleepiscopating
past participleepiscopated
pastepiscopated

Origin of episcopate

From Late Latin episcopatus, from Latin episcopus, from Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos, “watching over”).

Questions about episcopate

What does episcopate mean?
Episcopate means bishops seen as a group.
What part of speech is episcopate?
Episcopate can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce episcopate?
Episcopate is pronounced /ɪˈpɪskəpət/.
What is the plural of episcopate?
The plural of episcopate is episcopates.

Words near episcopate in the dictionary

  1. episcopally
  2. Episcopals
  3. episcopant
  4. episcopants
  5. episcoparian
  6. episcopate
  7. episcopated
  8. episcopates
  9. episcopating
  10. episcope
  11. episcopes

Source and license

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