bishop
Pluralbishops
Verbbishops, bishoping, bishoped
Pluralbishops
Formsbishops, bishoping, bishoped
- 1A senior official in the Christian church hierarchy who governs a diocese and oversees its priests, deacons, and property.
Like a regional manager who oversees many local branches and their staff.
The bishop ordained six new priests at the cathedral.
Each bishop reports to the archbishop above him.
Similarprelate
Note
The church office that most other senses borrow from: Old English bisċop, through Latin episcopus, from Greek epískopos, "overseer," literally one who watches over. In the New Testament the same officer is called bishop and elder (presbyter) interchangeably, as Joseph Barber Lightfoot observed in 1868. Later usage made it the highest of three orders: bishops, priests and deacons. King James's maxim "No bishop, no king" shows how political the office became.
- 2The chess piece, marked ♗ or ♝, that moves diagonally across the board any number of squares.
He fianchettoed his bishop to control the long diagonal.
Trading a bishop for a knight changed the whole pawn structure.
Note
This piece answered to many names before bishop won out. It began as the shatranj alfil, "elephant." Rowbotham in 1562 lists Alphins, fools, Princes and Archers alongside bishops. Gioachino Greco's The Royall Game of Chesse-Play (1656) still says "Bishop or Archer" and pictures the piece with its head cloven. Because it moves only diagonally, each bishop stays on squares of one color for the whole game.
- 3A sweet drink made from wine, usually mulled and spiced port flavored with oranges, lemons, and sugar.
Like mulled wine served warm at a holiday market.
We warmed up after the walk with a glass of bishop.
She ladled steaming bishop into cups for the carol singers.
Note
Literary London drank it hot, by the bowl. Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791) mentions "a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked." Jonathan Swift has roasted apples with sugar and wine make "a sweet Bishop." Coleridge praised "spicy bishop, drink divine" in 1801. It takes the usual drink measures: a bowl of bishop, a glass of bishop.
- 4Any of several African weaverbirds of the genus Euplectes, close relatives of the widowbirds, whose breeding males are brightly colored.
The male bishop molts into brilliant scarlet feathers during the breeding season.
Birdwatchers spotted a flock of bishops nesting in the marsh.
- 5To perform the duties of a bishop, especially to confirm a person's membership in the church.
Only a senior cleric may bishop new believers in the church.
He traveled between parishes to bishop those awaiting confirmation.
Similarconfirm
Note
The verb reaches back to Old English, whose laws speak of a bishop appointed "to bisceopgenne cild," to bishop children. It usually takes the person confirmed as its object: W. Yonge's Diary (1622) has a marquis and his wife "bishopped, or confirmed." Fuller's "Bishop it" (1655) simply means to play the bishop. Both spellings, bishoped and bishopped, occur.
- 6To raise a person to the office of bishop; to consecrate someone as a bishop.
The synod voted to bishop the well-respected abbot.
He was bishoped at a grand ceremony attended by clergy from across the region.
Similarconsecrate
Note
Mostly heard in the passive: people are bishopped, or about to be. Latimer, preaching before the king in 1549, speaks of preachers "before they were byshoppyd or benificed." The Saturday Review in 1861 mentions "one about to be bishopped." Latimer's pairing places it beside other verbs of preferment, such as beneficed. In current writing it sounds most natural in that passive frame.
- 7An official or chief priest holding a comparable leading role in a religion other than Christianity.
The bishop of the ward managed the congregation's welfare program.
Members brought their concerns to the bishop for guidance.
Note
A Christian title stretched to fit other faiths. Thomas Bowes's 1586 translation of The French Academie calls the caliphs "chiefe bishops," and Merran Fraenkel's Tribe and Class in Monrovia (2018) reports that the city's imam is commonly called "the Muslim Bishop" in conversation and the press. The usage is nonstandard. Outside such fixed local habits, name the office by its own title, such as imam or caliph.
- 8A flowering plant of the genus Bifora, part of the carrot family.
A cluster of bishop spread across the meadow by midsummer.
Botanists collected bishop from the dry hillside for the herbarium.
- 9A ladybug; a small beetle of the family Coccinellidae, typically red or orange with black spots.
A bishop settled on the rose leaves, hunting for aphids.
Gardeners welcome the bishop because it eats garden pests.
Note
In dialect speech the spotted beetle could be called a bishop, and the name lives on in a fortune-telling rhyme. William Douglas Parish's A Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect (1875) gives it as "Bishop, Bishop-Barnabee, / Tell me when my wedding shall be", which bids the insect fly away if the day is tomorrow. Outside dialect use the name would puzzle most listeners. Ladybug or ladybird is the safe everyday choice, and bishop reads as deliberate local color.
- 10To make a horse appear younger than its true age, especially by tampering with its teeth.
He was caught trying to bishop a worn-out gelding at the fair.
They would bishop any aging horse to fool unwary buyers.
Note
A horse dealer's term that, like the burnt-milk verb, is about burning. Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1788) defines it as burning the age mark back into a horse's tooth, and links it to the bishop's foot in the milk. Filing went with it: E. E. Napier in 1840 found teeth "filed down and bishoped." The trick itself is called bishoping.
- 11To allow food, especially milk, to scorch or burn while cooking.
The cook bishoped the cream and filled the kitchen with an acrid smell.
If you leave it untended, the milk will bishop on the stove.
Note
Behind it is a proverb for burnt food: "the bishop hath put his foot in the pot." Tyndale, before 1536, explained the joke bitterly: bishops "burn who they lust." Milton and Swift repeat the saying about the bishop's foot in the broth. By Gaskell's Sylvia's Lovers (1863) it is a plain dialect verb, and milk can be "bishopped e'er so little." Outside dialect writing, say scorched or burnt.
- 12The mock chief chosen to preside over the Feast of Fools or the St. Nicholas Day celebrations.
On St. Nicholas Day a young boy was elected bishop and led the merry procession.
The bishop of the Feast of Fools presided over an evening of cheerful disorder.
- 13A padded frame or cushion worn beneath a woman's skirt to make it stand out at the back.
The seamstress adjusted the bishop beneath the heavy silk skirt.
If, by her bishop, or her 'grace' alone, A genuine lady, or a church, is known.
c. 1860, John Saxe, ProgressNote
This dress word invited church jokes. John Saxe's Progress (around 1860) sets a lady's bishop beside her "grace," so the couplet could describe either a lady or a church. The term is archaic American usage. A modern reader knows the garment as a bustle, so use that word except when writing about period fashion or quoting.
- 14A loose protective overgarment worn by children, in the manner of a smock or pinafore.
The children pulled on their bishops before sitting down to their porridge.
Here; tak him, an wesh him; an' put him a clen bishop on.
1874, Evelyn Waugh in Lanc. Gloss. (E.D.S.)Note
A nursery garment of Lancashire speech. The Lancashire Glossary (1874) records the household instruction "tak him, an wesh him; an' put him a clen bishop on," where a clean bishop goes on after the wash. The word is archaic as well as regional. In present-day writing, smock or pinafore is the safe choice, and bishop belongs to dialect speech or period dialogue.
- 15To supply a church or territory with bishops.
Rome moved quickly to bishop the new provinces of the empire.
Italy would be well bishoped if her episcopacy... did not exceed fifty-nine.
1865, Daily Telegraph, 5/3Note
This rare verb is most at home as a participle after an adverb of measure, as in "well bishoped," much like "well staffed." The Daily Telegraph in 1865 judged that "Italy would be well bishoped" if its episcopacy did not exceed fifty-nine. It differs from the consecrating verb in its object: here it is the territory, not the person raised to office.
- 16To confirm or settle a matter, used jocularly in the ordinary senses of "confirm."
Why sent they it by Felton to be bishoped at Paules?
1596, W. Warner, Albions Eng.He... chose to bear The Name of Fool confirm'd, and Bishop'd by the Fair.
1700, Boccaccio, “Cymon & Iphigenia”Note
A pun that works only because bishops confirm. Since to bishop meant to confirm in church, wits used it for confirming anything. Dryden's Fables (1700) has a man content to bear "the Name of Fool confirm'd, and Bishop'd by the Fair." The joke is long obsolete, so it depends on the confirmation sense being understood. It is no longer a usable synonym for ratify.
- 17To murder someone by drowning.
The resurrectionists were accused of bishoping vagrants to supply the anatomists.
I Burked the papa, now I'll Bishop the son.
1840, R.H. Barham, Some Account of a New Play in Ingoldsby Legends 1st seriesNote
Not the churchman's word at all, but a murderer's surname. In 1831 John Bishop and Thomas Williams drowned their victims, an Italian boy among them, in a well in Bethnal Green and sold the bodies to surgeons. They were hanged outside Newgate that December. The verb sits beside burke, and R. H. Barham's Ingoldsby Legends (1840) pairs the two: "I Burked the papa, now I'll Bishop the son."
- 18A watchman, inspector, or overseer.
There is no place we see privileged from temptations, no desert so solitary but the devil will seek it out; no pinnacle so high but the devil is a bishop over it, to visit and overlook it.
a. 1627 (date written), Lancelot Andrewes, “Seven Sermons upon the Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness. Sermon IV.”Note
Here the Greek "watcher over" shows through the churchly word. Lancelot Andrewes, in sermons written before 1627, says there is no pinnacle so high "but the devil is a bishop over it, to visit and overlook it." His verbs spell out what the title meant. The sense is obsolete. Read it as "overseer," not as a clergyman, and use it today only as a deliberate archaism.
- 19The holder of the Greek or Roman office of episcopus, an overseer of the public distribution of grain and similar duties.
They gave away corn, not cash; and Cicero was made bishop, or overseer, of this public victualling.
1808, The Monthly Magazine and British Register, 26 109Note
A translator's word for a pagan civic post, rendering the Latin episcopus literally. In The Monthly Magazine of 1808, Cicero is "made bishop, or overseer," of the public victualling. The added "or overseer" shows that readers needed help with the sense even then. The usage is obsolete. Modern writing would say overseer or keep episcopus, and reserve bishop for the church office.
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Practice
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Origins
From Middle English "bishop" and Old English "bisċop," going back through Vulgar and classical Latin "episcopus" ("overseer, supervisor") to Ancient Greek "epískopos" ("overseer"), built from "epí" ("over") and "skopós" ("watcher"). The word was used in Greek and Latin both generally and as a title for civil officers.
This sense is eponymous, coming from the surname Bishop.