# church

Pronunciation: say "CHURCH" US /t͡ʃɜɹt͡ʃ/, UK /t͡ʃɜːt͡ʃ/

## Noun

1. A building used for Christian worship and religious services.
   - Simple: A building where Christians meet to pray and worship together.
   - _The wedding will be held at the church downtown._
   - _Medieval churches often took generations to build._
2. A local body of Christians who share the same beliefs and worship together.
   - Simple: A group of Christians who meet and worship together.
   - _The church gathered to support the grieving family._
   - _Rural churches often struggle to keep younger members._
3. A distinct denomination or organized branch within Christianity.
   - Simple: One of the separate groups within Christianity, such as Catholics or Baptists.
   - _The Anglican church traces its origins to the English Reformation._
   - _Several Protestant churches merged into a single denomination._
4. Christian worship attended at a place of worship; the religious service itself.
   - Simple: The worship service that Christians attend, usually on Sunday.
   - _They were late for church because of the traffic._
   - _Church lasted nearly two hours on Easter Sunday._
5. Organized religion regarded as an institution with political power and public influence.
   - Simple: Religion seen as a powerful group that can shape laws and politics.
   - _The church and the crown often clashed over authority in medieval Europe._
   - _Reformers demanded that the church stay out of national politics._
6. Christians collectively regarded as a single worldwide spiritual community.
   - Simple: All Christians everywhere, seen as one large community.
   - _The church endured centuries of persecution before gaining acceptance._
   - _Theologians describe the church as the body of believers across all nations._
7. Any place of worship or religious community, regardless of the particular faith. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Any place of worship or religious group, even outside the Christian faith.
   - _Members of the town's Buddhist church gather every Sunday for chanting and a shared meal._
   - _She left the small pagan church she had joined in college._

## Interjection

8. Used to voice emphatic agreement with what someone has just said. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Said to show that you strongly agree with something.
   - _"We deserve a raise after all this." "Church."_
   - _He grinned and said "church" when his friend called the plan genius._

## Verb

9. To bring someone up in religious teaching, as a church does.
   - Simple: To teach someone about religion, the way a church does.
   - _Raised by devout parents and churched every Sunday of his youth, he could still recite most of the psalms decades later._
   - _Though he had been churched from the cradle, he drifted away from religion in college._

## Noun

10. An assembly or gathering of people. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A meeting or gathering of people.

## Other meanings

- (verb) To lead a religious rite for a woman who has recently given birth, or for a couple who have just married.

## Origin

Ancient Greek κύριος ("ruler, lord") gave κυριακός ("belonging to the lord"), whose neuter form κυριακόν (kuriakón) was borrowed early into Proto-West Germanic as *kirikā. That became Old English ċiriċe and Middle English chirche. Kirk is a doublet, and Dutch kerk, German Kirche, and Swedish kyrka are cognates.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/church (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).