pertaining to or based on the principle of ecclesiastical government by presbyters or presbyteries.
(initial capital letter) designating or pertaining to various churches having this form of government and professing more or less modified forms of Calvinism.
First recorded in 1635–45; presbytery + -an
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Evidence was also given by a Presbyterian minister and his wife who provided support to Complainant A and her husband.
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2026
The Presbyterian Church of the U.S. and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, a Catholic religious order, filed the respective proposals.
From Barron's • Jun. 3, 2026
In the 1930s, his wife, Ruth Bell Graham, had attended high school there, on a sprawling Presbyterian mission compound on Pyongyang’s west side.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026
Rev. David Black leads the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in Hyde Park, a congregation that describes itself as “progressive” with “traditional theology,” and also as multigenerational, multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural.
From Salon • Apr. 6, 2026
Whereas Jackson tended toward a more volatile and pulpit-thumping style reminiscent of an itinerant Presbyterian minister in the revivalistic mode, Smith preferred the more measured cadences of the South Carolina aristocrat steeped in Ciceronian formalities.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
