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anticlerical

American  
[an-tee-kler-i-kuhl, an-tahy-] / ˌæn tiˈklɛr ɪ kəl, ˌæn taɪ- /

adjective

  1. opposed to the influence and activities of the clergy or the church in secular or public affairs.


anticlerical British  
/ ˌæntɪˈklɛrɪkəl /

adjective

  1. opposed to the power and influence of the clergy, esp in politics

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

noun

  1. a supporter of an anticlerical party

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of anticlerical

First recorded in 1835–45; anti- + clerical

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Although the leaders of many anticlerical organizations were deemed heretics and suppressed by church leaders, they nevertheless laid the groundwork for the sixteenth-century religious revolution known as the Protestant Reformation.

From Textbooks Apr. 19, 2023

And though many of the tougher anticlerical laws have been eased in modern times, church-state separation remains entrenched as a core political concept.

From Washington Post Dec. 18, 2019

In the last room of the exhibit is Bocanegra’s staging of “Dialogue of the Carmelites,” a nineteen-fifties opera based on the story of a French convent where the nuns are executed by anticlerical French revolutionaries.

From The New Yorker Oct. 19, 2018

When French presidential contender François Fillon marked the Feast of the Assumption last summer, he attended Mass at Solesmes Abbey, a Benedictine monastery known for defying the anticlerical purges of the French Revolution.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 3, 2017

Triumphant in 1861, he carried his anticlerical program to the point of actually expelling the Papal Nuncio and other ecclesiastics who refused to obey his decrees.

From Hispanic Nations of the New World; a chronicle of our southern neighbors by William R. (William Robert) Shepherd

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