conventicle
Americannoun
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a secret or unauthorized meeting, especially for religious worship, as those held by Protestant dissenters in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.
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a place of meeting or assembly, especially a Nonconformist meeting house.
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Obsolete. a meeting or assembly.
noun
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a secret or unauthorized assembly for worship
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a small meeting house or chapel for a religious assembly, esp of Nonconformists or Dissenters
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of conventicle
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin conventiculum a small assembly. See convent, -i-, -cle 1
Vocabulary lists containing conventicle
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.
For this has been well proved, that whenever any one for just grievance assembles men to avenge his injury, he has not incurred the crime and penalty of conventicle.
From The Old Yellow Book Source of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book by Anonymous
But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and the conventicle has begun.
From The Gentle Reader by Crothers, Samuel McChord
Then there are Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc and quite a conventicle of smaller fry who have been vainly preaching the same apocalypse for years.
From The myth of the Jewish menace in world affairs or, The truth about the forged protocols of the elders of Zion by Wolf, Lucien
In the open space—where was then no fair garden inclosed with palisades, it being a rendezvous for mountebanks, dancing bears, and baited bulls—the populace kindled a bonfire, and consumed the ruins of the conventicle.
From London in Modern Times or, Sketches of the English Metropolis during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. by Unknown
In the height of his resentment he addressed first one, and then another, "What, have you been to the conventicle?"
From Memorials of the Independent Churches in Northamptonshire with biographical notices of their pastors, and some account of the puritan ministers who laboured in the county. by Coleman, Thomas
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.
