catholic church
noun
Simple meaning
The Catholic Church, which consists of 24 particular churches in full communion with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kathlihkchurchSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkæθlɪkˈtʃɝtʃ
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
The Catholic Church, which consists of 24 particular churches in full communion with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome.
Any Christian denomination that identifies explicitly as "Catholic" based on its affirmation of the Nicene Creed, such as any of the Anglican Churches.
Any of the independent Catholic Churches, such as the Old Catholic Church, the Polish National Catholic Church, or the Orthodox Catholic Church.
Any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church
Literally "universal church", the whole body of Christendom, especially before the division into Western and Eastern churches.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The Catholic Church, which consists of 24 particular churches in full communion with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome.
Used this way, catholic church 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
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
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.