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

The mountain itself, although far beyond the dominions of Shoa, is renowned as the most sacred seat of monkery.

From The Highlands of Ethiopia by William Cornwallis Harris

In the Twelfth Century a college was merely a monkery that took in boarders, and learning was acquired by absorption.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 13 Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers by Elbert Hubbard

It is true, I was a pious monk, and if ever a monk could have gained heaven by his monkery I would have gained it.

From Life of Luther with several introductory and concluding chapters from general church history by Gustav Just

"If it was possible," he said afterwards, "to reach Heaven by monkery, I was resolved to reach it by that road."

From Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion based on Psychology and History by Auguste Sabatier

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

What a rag-fair of extinct monkeries, high-piled here in the very shrine of our existence, fit to smite the generations with atrophy and beggarly paralysis,—as we see it do!

From Latter-Day Pamphlets by Thomas Carlyle

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

From Old Calabria by Norman Douglas

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

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

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