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clerisy

noun
/ˈklɛɹɪsi/

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κλῆρος (klêros) + -isy. Introduced by Coleridge, based on German Clerisei (modern Klerisei), from Late Latin clēricus.

  1. derived from clēricus
  2. derived from Clerisei

Definitions

  1. An elite group of intellectuals

    An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.

    • 2003: By the nineteenth-century clerisy […] Christianity itself, yoked to material civilization, came to be questioned as gross and vulgar. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 432)
    • 2016: Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language. — George F. Will, Washington Post, 18 Nov, 2016
    • 2022: We invent ourselves as American writers—it's not a clerisy we’re born into... — Edward Hirsch, The Heart of American Poetry (Library of America, 2022)

  2. The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.

    • Few men have ever had a stronger conviction of their clerisy, of their belonging to the clerkly caste of the responsibles.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for clerisy. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA