Presbytery
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The home of a Roman Catholic parish priest.
"Near-synonyms: curatage, parsonage, vicarage"
- 2 building reserved for the officiating clergy wordnet
- 3 A section of a church reserved for the clergy, containing the altar.
"Near-synonym: chancel (broadly synonymous)"
- 4 Presbyters collectively; the body of presbyters of a congregation.
"Meronym: presbyter"
- 5 The district (jurisdiction) of those presbyters.
"Near-synonyms: diocese, parish"
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- 6 A body of elders in the early Christian church.
Example
More examples"The Central Presbytery has directed all branches worldwide to provide guidance to the elders and zoning supervisors of the congregation to help them understand how to prepare before and how to respond to disasters."
Etymology
From Middle English presbetory, presbytory (“part of church reserved for clergy”), from Late Latin presbyterium (“group of presbyters, part of church reserved for clergy”), from Ancient Greek πρεσβῠτέρῐον (presbŭtérĭon, “group of presbyters”), from πρεσβῠ́τερος (presbŭ́teros, “elder, priest”) + -ῐον (-ĭon). By surface analysis, presbyter + -y. Doublet of presbyterium.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.