Word.ws English Dictionary

prelate

/ˈpɹɛlət/

prelate noun: a clergyman of high rank and authority, having jurisdiction over an area or a group of people; normally a bishop.

Noun

prelate (plural prelates)

  1. A clergyman of high rank and authority, having jurisdiction over an area or a group of people; normally a bishop.
    • Hear him but reason in divinity, […] / You would desire the king were made a prelate.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • ’Tis acknowledg’d on all hands, ſays that learned Prelate, that the Authority, either of the Scripture or of Tradition, is founded merely on the Teſtimony of the Apoſtles, who were Eye-witneſſes to thoſe Miracles of our Saviour, by which he prov’d his divine Miſſion.1748, [David Hume], “Essay X. Of Miracles”, in Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, part I, page 173

Verb

prelate (third-person singular simple present prelates, present participle prelating, simple past and past participle prelated)

  1. (intransitive) (obsolete) To act as a prelate.
    • 18 January 1549, Hugh Latimer, Sermon of the Plough
      Right prelating is busy labouring, and not lording.

Proper noun capitalized: Prelate

Prelate

  1. A village in Saskatchewan, Canada.

prelate meaning in Bengali, Tagalog and Indonesian

prelate in Bengali

উচ্চপদস্থ ধর্মযাজক, বিশপ

prelate in Tagalog

clergyman
prelado

prelate in Indonesian

clergyman
prelatus

Forms of prelate

Noun
pluralprelates
Verb
third-person singular presentprelates
present participleprelating
past participleprelated
pastprelated

Plural of prelate: prelates

Origin of prelate

From Old French prelat (French prélat), from Medieval Latin praelātus, perfect passive participle of praeferō (“to carry before, prefer, exceed”), see -ate (noun-forming suffix). Doublet of prefer. See also infer, relate and refer, delate and defer, as well as collate and confer among others.

Words formed from prelate

Words that rhyme with prelate

Questions about prelate

What does prelate mean?
Prelate means a clergyman of high rank and authority, having jurisdiction over an area or a group of people; normally a bishop.
What is prelate in Bengali?
Prelate in Bengali is উচ্চপদস্থ ধর্মযাজক, বিশপ. See Prelate meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is prelate?
Prelate can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce prelate?
Prelate is pronounced /ˈpɹɛlət/ (UK).
What is the plural of prelate?
The plural of prelate is prelates.

Words near prelate in the dictionary

  1. prelaps
  2. prelapsarian
  3. prelarvae
  4. prelarval
  5. prelaryngeal
  6. prelate
  7. prelated
  8. prelatehood
  9. prelateity
  10. prelates
  11. prelateship

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: prelate (page history and authors); Prelate (page history and authors); prelate (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-prelate.wav.

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