Search the Dictionary

, framing, or constructing; construction; manufacture; as, the fabrication of a bridge, a church, or a government. Burke.

t of a building; esp., the principal front, having some architectural pretensions. Thus a church is said to have its facade unfinished, though the interior may be in use.

t by Christ; as, the Christian faith; also, the creed or belief of a Christian society or church. Which to believe of her, Must be a faith that reason without miracle Could never plant in me. Shak. Now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed. Gal. i. 23.

formerly placed in the choir for a bishop, when he offciated in any but his own cathedral church. Fairholt.

A temple; a place consecrated to religion; a church. [Poet.] Such to this British Isle, her Christian fanes. Wordsworth.

A dignitary of the church, a superior of a convent, a confessor (called also father confessor), or a priest; also, the eldest member of a profession, or of a legislative assembly, etc. Bless you, good father friar ! Shak.

In a feeble manner. The restored church . . . contended feebly, and with half a heart. Macaulay.

Athens. Shak. A sheepcote fenced about with olive trees. Shak. To fence the tables (Scot. Church), to make a solemn address to those who present themselves to commune at the Lord's supper, on the feelings appropriate to the service, in order to hinder, so far as possible, those who are unworthy from approaching the tab…

e Son as well as from the Father. Hence, the doctrine itself (not admitted by the Eastern Church).

necessary fixtures or apparatus; as, the fittings of a church or study; gas fittings.

A Christian church or congregation; considered in their relation to the pastor, or minister in charge. As half amazed, half frighted all his flock. Tennyson.

A flock of sheep; figuratively, the Church or a church; as, Christ's fold. There shall be one fold and one shepherd. John x. 16. The very whitest lamb in all my fold. Tennyson.

o put in force; to cause to be executed; to make binding; to enforce. [Obs.] What can the church force more J. Webster.

ge. You and your followers do stand formally divided against the authorized guides of the church and rest of the people. Hooker.

a particular privilege extends; the limits of an immunity; hence, an asylum or sanctuary. Churches and mobasteries in Spain are franchises for criminals. London Encyc.

h. Mozley & W. -- Pious fraud (Ch. Hist.), a fraud contrived and executed to benefit the church or accomplish some good end, upon the theory that the end justified the means. -- Statute of frauds (Law), an English statute (1676), the principle of which is incorporated in the legislation of all the States of this coun…

.), a charge of electricity in the free or statical condition; free electricity. -- Free church. (a) A church whose sittings are for all and without charge. (b) An ecclesiastical body that left the Church of Scotland, in 1843, to be free from control by the government in spiritual matters. -- Free city, or Free town,…

r religion, one who forms opinions independently of the authority of revelation or of the church; an unbeliever; -- a term assumed by deists and skeptics in the eighteenth century. Atheist is an old-fashioned word: I'm a freethinker, child. Addison.

A seat in churches near the altar, to which offenders formerly fled for sanctuary. [Written variously fridstool, freedstool, etc.] [Obs.]

To stand opposed or opposite to, or over against as, his house fronts the church.