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One of the clergy who reads the epistle at the communion service; an epistler.

Counterpoise. The equipoise to the clergy being removed. Buckle.

The great classes or orders of a community or state (as the clergy, the nobility, and the commonalty of England) or their representatives who administer the government; as, the estates of the realm (England), which are (1) the lords spiritual, (2) the lords temporal, (3) the commons.

veral monasteries; in the modern Greek Church, a deputy of the patriarch , who visits the clergy, investigates ecclesiastical cases, etc.

London, which originally stood near a stream, the Fleet (now filled up). Fleet parson, a clergyman of low character, in, or in the vicinity of, the Fleet prison, who was ready to unite persons in marriage (called Fleet marriage) at any hour, without public notice, witnesses, or consent of parents.

Of or pertaining to Gaul or France; Gallic; French; as, the Gallican church or clergy.

clothes worn by any person, especially when indicating rank or office; as, the garb of a clergyman or a judge.

to conduct or preside at; as, the general held a council of war; a judge holds a court; a clergyman holds a service. I would hold more talk with thee. Shak.

ed; wrong; iniquitious; naughtly; bad; improper. Of his own body he was ill, and gave The clergy ill example. Shak.

icular privilege; as, the immunities of the free cities of Germany; the immunities of the clergy.

A clergyman so inducted.

, action, language, etc.; a foreign ingredient. Foul impurities reigned among the monkish clergy. Atterbury.

nt but sin. Jer. Taylor. His slightest and most indifferent acts . . . were odious in the clergyman's sight. Hawthorne.

The introduction of a clergyman into a benefice, or of an official into a office, with appropriate acts or ceremonies; the giving actual possession of an ecclesiastical living or its temporalities.

A prohibition of the pope, by which the clergy or laymen are restrained from performing, or from attending, divine service, or from administering the offices or enjoying the privileges of the church.

One who intrudes; especially, one who favors the appointment of a clergyman to a parish, by a patron, against the wishes of the parishioners.

hese, Renders us jealous and disturbs our peace. Waller. The people are so jealous of the clergy's ambition. Swift.

A clergyman or officer in a kirk. [Scot.]

et in May, 1873, of the so-called May laws, or Falk laws, aiming at the regulation of the clergy. Opposition eventually compelled the government to change its policy, and from 1880 to 1887 laws virtually nullifying the May laws were enacted.

The people, as distinguished from the clergy; the body of the people not in orders. A rising up of the laity against the sacerdotal caste. Macaulay.