Word.ws English Dictionary

low church

low church noun: a tradition within the Anglican church more heavily influenced by Protestant and Reformed belief and practice, characterised by an informal style of worship, a less elevated view of the priesthood and sacraments, and a focus on evangelical principles.

Noun (1)

low church (uncountable)

  1. (Anglicanism) A tradition within the Anglican church more heavily influenced by Protestant and Reformed belief and practice, characterised by an informal style of worship, a less elevated view of the priesthood and sacraments, and a focus on evangelical principles.
  2. (broadly) Any similar Christian tradition.

Adjective (1)

low church (comparative more low church, superlative most low church)

  1. Characteristic of or pertaining to such a tradition.
    • What a sly fox that Curate was! He was low-church, and she never liked him.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 16, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
    • Dr. Newman and Dr. Manning began with very Low Church principles.1858 July, “Where Do Defections to Rome Come from?”, in The American Quarterly Church Review, and Ecclesiastical Register, volume 11, number 2, page 366

Noun (2) capitalized: Low Church

Low Church (uncountable)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of low church.

Adjective (2) capitalized: Low Church

Low Church (comparative more Low Church, superlative most Low Church)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of low church.

Forms of low church

Noun
alternative formLow Church
alternative formlow-church
Adjective
comparativemore low church
superlativemost low church
comparativemore Low Church
superlativemost Low Church

Origin of low church

By analogy with high church.

Questions about low church

What does low church mean?
Low church means a tradition within the Anglican church more heavily influenced by Protestant and Reformed belief and practice, characterised by an informal style of worship, a less elevated view of the priesthood and sacraments, and a focus on evangelical principles.
What part of speech is low church?
Low church can be a noun or an adjective.

Words near low church in the dictionary

  1. low breathing
  2. low bridge
  3. low bridges
  4. low C
  5. low camp
  6. low church
  7. low churchman
  8. Low Churchmen
  9. Low Coniscliffe
  10. Low Coniscliffe and Merrybent
  11. low context culture

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: low church (page history and authors); Low Church (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: “low church.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/low_church. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.