monkery

American  

[muhng-kuh-ree] / ˈmʌŋ kə ri /

noun

Disparaging.

• monkeries
  plural

1. the mode of life, behavior, etc., of monks; monastic life.

2. a monastery.

3. monkeries, the practices, beliefs, etc., of monks.

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monkery British  

/ ˈmʌŋkərɪ /

noun

1. monastic life or practices

2. a monastery or monks collectively

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• monkeries
  plural

Etymology

Origin of monkery

First recorded in 1530–40; monk + -ery

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

monkery monkeries

If ever Rome had an honest applicant for monkery, Luther is that man.

From Luther Examined and Reexamined A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation by W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore) Dau

Plausible arguments in the same direction have been frequently made since Gibbon's time by comparing the best of Roman civilization with the worst of the self-torturing monkery of the early Christian centuries.

From Caricature and Other Comic Art in all Times and many Lands. by James Parton

And of such there is here enough to glut the gorge of all the monks in monkery, or strengthen for a forty days’ fast any brutallest unwashed theomaniac of the Thebaid. 

From A Study of Shakespeare by Edmund Gosse

Scott’s love for the knighthood and monkery was real, but it was playful. 

From Romance Two Lectures by Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh

As Mr Maitland says of the plan—it would be after all but "a playing at monkery."

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847 by Various

Broke violently in upon quiescent Austrian routine, on every side: monkeries, school-pedantries, trade-monopolies, serfages,—all things, military and civil, spiritual and temporal, he had resolved to make perfect in a minimum of time.

From History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 21 by Thomas Carlyle

These monkeries were established in the land by virtue of civil authority.

From Old Calabria by Norman Douglas

Yet Diderot had far too much genius to be tempted into the exaggerations of more vulgar assailants of monkeries and nunneries.

From Diderot and the Encyclopædists Volume II. by John Morley

These teachers commanded separation from society, isolation in the wilderness, the establishment of monkeries and the performance of self-appointed works.

From Epistle Sermons, Vol. III Trinity Sunday to Advent by Martin Luther

Buddhist monkeries and nunneries are almost as common, and certainly more ancient than Roman Catholic monasteries, and they had very nearly the same numerous accessories in worship, which we are familiar with in papal countries.

From Ancient Faiths And Modern A Dissertation upon Worships, Legends and Divinities by Thomas Inman