conventicle

American  

[kuhn-ven-ti-kuhl] / kənˈvɛn tɪ kəl /

noun

1. a secret or unauthorized meeting, especially for religious worship, as those held by Protestant dissenters in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.

2. a place of meeting or assembly, especially a Nonconformist meeting house.

3. Obsolete. a meeting or assembly.

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conventicle British  

/ kənˈvɛntɪkəl /

noun

1. a secret or unauthorized assembly for worship

2. a small meeting house or chapel for a religious assembly, esp of Nonconformists or Dissenters

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• conventicler
  noun
• conventicular
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of conventicle

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin conventiculum a small assembly. See convent, -i-, -cle ¹

Example Sentences

In the sixth year of his marriage Baxter was brought before the magistrates for holding a conventicle, and was sentenced to be confined in Clerkenwell Gaol.

From How to be Happy Though Married Being a Handbook to Marriage by Hardy, Edward John

We heard that there was to be a field conventicle near by, at which Mr. Cameron was to preach.

From The Men of the Moss-Hags Being a history of adventure taken from the papers of William Gordon of Earlstoun in Galloway by Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)

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

However they brought in an Act to imprison all who went to a conventicle, or who seduced others from repairing to the Public Congregation or from receiving the Holy Sacrament.

From The West Indies and the Spanish Main by Rodway, James

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