simony

/ˈsaɪ.mə.ni/

simony noun: the buying or selling of spiritual or sacred things, such as ecclesiastical offices, pardons, or consecrated objects.

Noun

simony (countable and uncountable, plural simonies)

The buying or selling of spiritual or sacred things, such as ecclesiastical offices, pardons, or consecrated objects.
- To his eyes it had no attraction; it savoured of simony, and was likely to bring down upon him harder and more deserved strictures than any he had yet received: he positively declined to become vicar of Puddingdale under any circumstances.1855, Anthony Trollope, chapter 20, in The Warden
- ‘There are those two,’ he then said, ‘who were recently arraigned on a charge of high simony. Fancying a monstrance and stealing it and proposing to sell it. They pleaded the usual pagan ignorance.’1989, Anthony Burgess, “Hun”, in The Devil’s Mode
Synonyms:

Simonism

Synonyms of simony

Simonism

Forms of simony

plural	simonies

Origin of simony

From Middle English simonie, symonye, from Old French simonie, from Late Latin simonia, named after Simon Magus (Hebrew שִׁמְעוֹן (Šimʻôn, “Simon”)), with reference to Acts 8:18–20.

Words formed from simony

Questions about simony

What does simony mean?: Simony means the buying or selling of spiritual or sacred things, such as ecclesiastical offices, pardons, or consecrated objects.
What part of speech is simony?: Simony is a noun.
How do you pronounce simony?: Simony is pronounced /ˈsaɪ.mə.ni/ (UK).
What is the plural of simony?: The plural of simony is simonies.

Words near simony in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: simony (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: 2026-09-02

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

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