catholicism
noun
Simple meaning
The faiths, practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church, usually the Roman Catholic Church.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kuhthawluhsihzuhmSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
kəˈθɔləsɪzəm
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 beliefs and practices of a Catholic Church
The faiths, practices and doctrines of the Catholic Church, usually the Roman Catholic Church.
The state or quality of being catholic or universal; catholicity.
Liberality of sentiment; breadth of view.
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: The beliefs and practices of a Catholic Church
Used this way, catholicism 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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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 doctrine and practice within the Church of England emphasizing the Catholic tradition.
A religious orientation opposed to Catholicism.
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.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- catholicnoun
- christianitynoun
- denominationnoun
- judaismnoun
- hinduismnoun
- buddhismnoun
- priesthoodnoun
- islamnoun
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.