catholic
adjective
Simple meaning
Of universal human interest or use.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kathlikSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkæθlɪk
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.
adjective
Of universal human interest or use.
Universal; all-encompassing.
usually of people and their feelingstastesetc.
Embracing all.
Of the Western Christian church, as differentiated from e.g. the Orthodox church.
Of the Roman Catholic church in particular.
Alternative letter-case form of Catholic.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of universal human interest or use.
Used this way, catholic is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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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 parochial school maintained by the Catholic Church.
A radical terrorist group dedicated to the removal of British forces from Northern Ireland and the unification of Ireland.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church.
A member of the Greek Orthodox Church.
A religious person who is not a Catholic.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The beliefs and practices of a Catholic Church.
The beliefs and practices of any of the eastern Catholic Churches based in Constantinople or Antioch or Alexandria or Moscow or Jerusalem.
The beliefs and practices of the Catholic Church based in Rome.
A doctrine and practice within the Church of England emphasizing the Catholic tradition.
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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.