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.

---

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

---

Other Word 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

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

Notwithstanding, or just because of this, Madame Krüdener, in 1814, with her conventicle pietism, found an entrance there, and won in the young theologian Empaytaz a zealous supporter and an apostle of conversion preaching.

From Church History, Vol. 3 of 3 by Kurtz, J. H.

He sneered at most things, but not at his own order, and he came to defend the church and the country Swift. squirearchy against the conventicle and Capel court.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various

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