pertaining to or based on the principle of ecclesiastical government by presbyters or presbyteries.
(initial capital letter) designating or pertaining to various churches having this form of government and professing more or less modified forms of Calvinism.
First recorded in 1635–45; presbytery + -an
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Does she have a point that her denomination, the presbyterian Free Church of Scotland - which is often described as socially conservative or even fundamentalist - is not alone in its teachings?
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2023
St Giles' has seen strong Scots women before: Jenny Geddes, in a burst of presbyterian fervour, threw a stool at the minister in the 17th century for daring to introduce an Anglican-tinged prayer book.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 17, 2014
Mack, a pastor at St Andrew's presbyterian church in Saint-Lambert, is a longtime friend of Chassagne's father.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 29, 2013
The presbyterian atmosphere of Sutherland's home in her native Sydney was the result of her father William McDonald Sutherland's being a Scots immigrant.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 11, 2010
In these there was nothing remarkable; but my master himself was the strangest creature! he was a presbyterian, whose reading was entirely confined to the small tracts published on the Exeter Controversy.
From The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 by Carpenter, S. C. (Stephen Cullen)
Evidence was also given by a Presbyterian minister and his wife who provided support to Complainant A and her husband.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
In the 1930s, his wife, Ruth Bell Graham, had attended high school there, on a sprawling Presbyterian mission compound on Pyongyang’s west side.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 11, 2026
Rev. David Black leads the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago in Hyde Park, a congregation that describes itself as “progressive” with “traditional theology,” and also as multigenerational, multiracial, multiethnic and multicultural.
From Salon ● Apr. 6, 2026
The thrice-married realtor and former television celebrity was raised Presbyterian and rarely attended religious services.
From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026
Some theologians were not content with moral certainty: in 1689 the Presbyterian propagandist Richard Baxter discussed the concept of evidence at great length, and decided that the only sort of evidence that counted was Evidence-Perspicuity.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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.
