monkery

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   The practices of monks

   The practices of monks; the way of life, behavior, etc. characteristic of monks; monastic life.

   • Even such monkery was confined entirely to the laity; the clergy having cures in villages or in towns, and being therefore precluded from monastic sequestrations. In time, however, monkery found its way among the clergy, […]
2. 2

   Monasticism.

   • You are not to suppose that I, as a good Catholic, am under any obligation to confound the active, intelligent, heroic, and fruitful monasticism of Columba with the systematic stupefaction of manhood in the monkery which came afterwards.
3. 3

   A monastery.

   • The sides resemble castellated piles and Gothic cathedrals, so fantastic are the shapes assumed by the natural rock; under St. Saba it became a monkery for all penitents who wished to live a hermit's life.
   • Polite society won't have the truth. You've got to feed it on lies, or go into a monkery — if that's what they call a masculine nunnery. Don't want to go into a monkery, so I lie. Reluctantly, delicately, frequently.
4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      Monks, considered as a group. (Compare clergy, laity.)

      • And furthermore, so long as they do entangle and bind themselves with so many and so perverse and wicked kinds of worshipping as the monkery now-a-days doth contain in it, I may well say that they are not consecrated unto God, […]
      • Unquestionably the monkery of the middle ages was better ordered than that of the Nicene.

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