priests

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of priest.

   The cathedral's priests took turns hearing confession throughout Lent.

   Village priests once kept the only written records of births and deaths.

   Note

   One regular plural serves several quite different nouns. Most often it means members of the clergy, but anglers carry priests too: blunt tools for stunning and killing a fish quickly. In Mormon usage it names holders of the highest office in the Aaronic priesthood. Context almost always settles which is meant, since a cathedral's priests and a fisherman's priests rarely share a sentence.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of priest.

   Each year the archbishop priests a fresh cohort for the rural parishes.

   The order priests its candidates in a quiet chapel away from public view.

   Note

   The verb is transitive, so it always needs an object: the person being ordained. A bishop priests a candidate, but nobody simply priests. Because it shares its spelling with the plural noun, the surrounding words do the sorting. In "the bishop priests the candidates" it is the verb, while "the bishop's priests" is a noun phrase. Ordain covers the same act in more general terms.

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