benefit of clergy
noun
Simple meaning
Sanction by a religious rite.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
behnuhfihtuhvklurjeeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɛnəfɪˈtʌvkˈlɝdʒi
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
Sanction by a religious rite
uklawhistorical
A legal provision by which clergymen (and, later, anybody who could read) could claim that they were outside the jurisdiction of the secular courts and be tried instead in an ecclesiastical court under canon law.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Sanction by a religious rite
Used this way, benefit of clergy is a specialist 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
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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.