basilica
noun
Simple meaning
A large, important Roman Catholic church.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buhsilihkuhSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
bəˈsɪlɪkə
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A Roman Catholic church or cathedral with basilican status, an honorific status granted by the pope to recognize its historical, architectural, or sacramental importance.
architecture
A Christian church building having a nave with a semicircular apse, side aisles, a narthex and a clerestory.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A Roman Catholic church or cathedral with basilican status, an honorific status granted by the pope to recognize its historical, architectural, or sacramental importance.
Used this way, basilica is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use basilica
- “The church was raised to the rank of basilica.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A Roman building used for public administration.
A vein that drains the back of the hand and forearm and empties into the axillary vein.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.