Word.ws English Dictionary

parish

Syllables: par·ishUK/ˈpæɹɪʃ//ˈpæɹɪʃ/

parish noun: an administrative part of a diocese that has its own church. Also the pronunciation spelling of perish.

Noun

parish (plural parishes)

  1. (Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy) An administrative part of a diocese that has its own church.
    • With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
    • Near-synonym: vicarate
    Synonyms:
    vicarate
  2. The community attending that church; the members of the parish.
    Synonyms:
    parishioner
  3. (US) An ecclesiastical society, usually not bounded by territorial limits, but composed of those persons who choose to unite under the charge of a particular priest, clergyman, or minister; also, loosely, the territory in which the members of a congregation live.
  4. A civil subdivision of a British county, often corresponding to an earlier ecclesiastical parish; a similar subdivision in Ireland.
    • Atlantic gales constantly buffet Morwenstow, whose seven hamlets together constitute Cornwall's most northerly parish. The village is dotted with trees moulded into weird shapes by the wind, and above the trees rise the vicarage chimneystacks resembling miniature church towers.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 288
    Synonyms:
    civil parish
  5. An administrative subdivision in the U.S. state of Louisiana that is equivalent to a county in other U.S. states.
    Synonyms:
    civil parish

Verb

parish (third-person singular simple present parishes, present participle parishing, simple past and past participle parished)

  1. (transitive) To place (an area, or rarely a person) into one or more parishes.
    • […] [m]akes possible, through the aid of the rural ministers, the development of the various phases of the District program, such as (a) Parishing of the District; (b) Interdenominational adjustment in the interest of rural religious advance […]1917, Annual Report of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Board of Home Missions and Church Extension, page 70
    • Father Malachy, a distant cousin, who was parished somewhere in the depths of Co. Monaghan, sat firmly in the chair in the corner, sipping his tea from a china cup.1972, Winter's Tales from Ireland, volume 2, page 55
  2. (intransitive) To visit residents of a parish.
    • […] a chair immediately opposite to Tressady's place remained vacant. It was being kept for the eldest son of the house, his mother explaining carelessly to Lord Fontenoy that she believed he was "Out parishing somewhere, as usual."1896, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Sir George Tressady, volume 1, →ISBN
    • "You will take pleasure in parishing. Mother used to parish."
      "How do you know I like parishing?"
      "Your uncle said so."
      "Oh! did he?"
      "And you may like the rectory people; it's a fine old house, and often full of visitors."1903, Maxwell Gray, Richard Rosny, page 210

Proper noun capitalized: Parish

Parish (countable and uncountable, plural Parishes)

  1. A surname.
  2. A town and village therein, in Oswego County, New York, United States.

Also used as

parish is also the pronunciation spelling of perish.

parish meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

parish in Hindi

part of a diocese
पैरिश pairiś

parish in Tamil

பாரிஷ்

parish in Marathi

पॅरिश, पाॅरिश, पॅरिशला

parish in Urdu

پیرش, پارش, پریش
More languagesFewer languages
parish in Bengali
প্যারিশ
parish in Telugu
పారిష్
parish in Malayalam
ഇടവക iṭavaka
parish in Kannada
ಪ್ಯಾರಿಷ್, ಪಾರಿಷ್, ಪ್ಯಾರಿಶ್
parish in Punjabi
ਪੈਰੀਸ਼, ਪਾਰਿਸ਼, ਪੈਰਿਸ਼
parish in Gujarati
પરગણું, પરગણાં
parish in Odia
ପାରିଶ
parish in Nepali
पारिश
parish in Tagalog
parokya
parish in Arabic
أبرشية, رَعِيَّة raʕiyya
parish in Malay
paroki
parish in Indonesian
paroki
parish in Vietnamese
giáo xứ, họ đạo, xã

Examples of parish in a sentence

  • Dr Whitehead: In your written evidence, you have all in different ways made the distinction between NDOs in parished areas and NDOs in non-parished areas, […]2011, Sustainable development in the Localism Bill: third report, →ISBN, page 5:
  • "Are you going ‘parishing’ this morning?" inquired Diana, as she watched him fill and light his pipe.1921, Margaret Pedler, The Splendid Folly, page 46:
  • In 1916 he was Rector of Hampton Bishop, a village on the River Wye outside Hereford, and one day while “parishing”, as he called visiting his flock, a farmers' wife, a Mrs.2013, Ann Bridge, Moments of Knowing:

All 40 example sentences with parish

Synonyms of parish

Forms of parish

Noun
pluralparishes
alternative Scotland (obsolete)paroch
Verb
third-person singular presentparishes
present participleparishing
past participleparished
pastparished
Proper noun
pluralParishes

Plural of parish: parishes

Origin of parish

From Middle English parisshe, from Old French paroisse (compare the obsolete variant paroch, from Anglo-Norman paroche, parosse), from Late Latin parochia, from Ancient Greek παροικία (paroikía, “a dwelling abroad”).

Words formed from parish

Phrases with parish

61 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about parish

What does parish mean?
Parish means an administrative part of a diocese that has its own church.
What is parish in Hindi?
Parish in Hindi is पैरिश (pairiś). See Parish meaning in Hindi.
How do you use parish in a sentence?
Dr Whitehead: In your written evidence, you have all in different ways made the distinction between NDOs in parished areas and NDOs in non-parished areas, […]
What part of speech is parish?
Parish can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce parish?
Parish is pronounced /ˈpæɹɪʃ/ (UK).
What is the plural of parish?
The plural of parish is parishes.

Words near parish in the dictionary

  1. parisaponin
  2. Parise
  3. Pariseau
  4. Pariseaus
  5. Parises
  6. parish
  7. parish assemblies
  8. parish assembly
  9. parish church
  10. parish churches
  11. parish clerk

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parish (page history and authors); Parish (page history and authors); parish (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); parish (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-parish.ogg.

Cite this entry: “parish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/parish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.