parish

Pluralparishes

Formsparishes, parishing, parished

1. 1
   church districtnouncountable

   A district of a diocese that is run as a unit and has its own church.

   The new subdivision falls within the boundaries of St. Anne's parish.

   The diocese closed three rural parishes last year and merged their congregations.

   Note

   The word began as Greek paroikía, "a dwelling abroad," and reached English through Late Latin parochia and Old French paroisse. In the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox churches it is the basic local unit, often called by its church's name: St. Anne's parish, St. Bede's. A near-synonym is vicarate.

2. 2
   local church membersnouncountable

   The community of people who belong to and attend a parish church.

   The entire parish gathered on the lawn after the Easter service.

   The parish voted to sell the old rectory and build a youth center.

   Similarcongregation, flock

   Note

   The word moves from the map to the people on it: a parish can gather on the lawn after a service or vote to sell its rectory, while the church district is something a diocese merges or closes. One member is a parishioner; the parish is all of them acting together.

3. 3
   Louisiana countynouncountable

   One of the administrative divisions of the U.S. state of Louisiana, equivalent to a county in other states.

   Jefferson Parish voters approved a new tax for road repairs.

   Officials in several south Louisiana parishes ordered evacuations before the hurricane.

4. 4
   British local areanouncountable

   A civil division of a British county, often matching the area of an earlier church parish.

   The county council handed the upkeep of footpaths and the village green to the parish.

   Boundary changes moved the hamlet into a neighboring parish of the same county.

   Note

   Here the church map became a map for local government, and the old boundaries often survived the change. A single parish can take in several settlements: Morwenstow's seven hamlets together make up Cornwall's most northerly parish. Where the church and civil kinds need telling apart, civil parish is the clear term.

5. 5
   area (other countries)nouncountable

   In some countries, one of the districts into which an area is divided for administration.

   Election results were announced parish by parish across the island.

   The coastal road crosses three parishes before it reaches the capital.

   Similardistrict

6. 6
   nounUScountable

   A church society of people who choose to unite under a particular member of the clergy, usually without territorial limits; loosely, the area where its members live.

   Families from three counties belong to the parish, drawn by its young pastor.

   Their parish reaches well beyond the city limits, out to the farms where many of its members live.

   Similarcongregation

   Note

   American usage puts membership before the map: people belong because they choose to unite under a particular pastor, not because of where they live. That sets it apart from the district within a diocese, which is drawn on a map. Loosely, the word can still mean the area where the members live, so one parish may reach across several counties.

7. 7
   visit homesverbintransitive

   To go around visiting the residents of a parish.

   As a new curate, he learned to parish properly, calling at every house on his streets.

   The rector spent the whole morning parishing among the farms by the river.

   Note

   It belongs to rectory life and nearly always appears in the -ing form: in Mrs. Humphry Ward's Sir George Tressady (1896) the eldest son is "out parishing somewhere, as usual." Writers often set it in quotation marks, as Margaret Pedler does in The Splendid Folly (1921), a sign that it was the clergy's own shorthand for calling on the flock.

8. 8
   assign to districtverbtransitive

   To arrange for an area or, occasionally, a person to belong to one or more parishes.

   The commission voted to parish the rural areas that had been left out of the plan.

   Father Doyle was parished in a small town near the border.

   Note

   The verb lives mostly in the passive and in adjectives: an area is parished, a region is well or poorly parished, and planners weigh parished against non-parished areas. Said of a person it means posted to a parish, as with a priest parished somewhere in County Monaghan, but that use is rare.

9. 9
   die (accent)verbpronunciation spelling

   Pronunciation spelling of perish, representing an accent in which Mary, marry, and merry sound alike.

   'Leave that bread out and it'll parish by morning,' Aunt Ruth said.

   'Folks could parish out there in the cold,' the sheriff said slowly.

   Note

   Writers reach for it in dialogue, where the spelling tells the reader how a character sounds rather than what the word means; the sense is still perish, to die, waste away or spoil. It matches the church district letter for letter but comes from a different word entirely, so only the sentence shows which one is meant.

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