ecclesiastical
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- antiecclesiastical adjective
- antiecclesiastically adverb
- ecclesiastically adverb
- interecclesiastical adjective
- interecclesiastically adverb
- nonecclesiastical adjective
- nonecclesiastically adverb
- unecclesiastically adverb
Etymology
Origin of ecclesiastical
late Middle English word dating back to 1375–1425; Ecclesiastes, -ical
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.
Yet despite the local ecclesiastical authorities approving the scene, the installation in central Brussels has come under fire online since opening on Friday, with right-wing Belgian politician Georges-Louis Bouchez even comparing the figures to "zombies".
From Barron's • Dec. 2, 2025
After the war, Faÿ was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor, but he escaped from prison in 1951 dressed in ecclesiastical costume, with the help of—here one reaches for the phrase “incredible but true”—Toklas.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 14, 2025
The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem pointed out that the holy site - over which it has ecclesiastical jurisdiction - had been granted a letter of protection by the Prophet Muhammad himself.
From BBC • Sep. 6, 2025
Within a few decades, new endpapers were added, and around 1847, the ecclesiastical historian and collector William Maskell signed the book and began adding his own notes.
From Science Daily • May 15, 2024
“He was a Mormon bishop, an ecclesiastical leader in her faith. It didn’t matter,” he says, not that it should have.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
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.
