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church

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A service conducted in a house of worship.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

church
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtʃɝtʃ

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A service conducted in a house of worship

  2. countablechristianity

    A Christian house of worship; a building where Christian religious services take place.

  3. countable

    A local group of people who follow the same Christian religious beliefs, local or general.

  4. The body of people who attend or belong to a particular local church

    “Our church is hosting a picnic next week.”

  5. Christians collectively seen as a single spiritual community; Christianity; Christendom.

  6. countable

    A particular denomination of Christianity.

verb

  1. transitive

    To educate someone religiously, as in a church.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A service conducted in a house of worship

Used this way, 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.

More ways to use church

  • “Our church is hosting a picnic next week.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

parish churchorthodox churchchurch historyearly church

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • church festivalnounCompound term

    A festival having religious significance.

  • church hatnounCompound term

    A fanciful hat of the kind worn by Black women for Sunday worship.

  • church keynounCompound term

    Can opener that has a triangular pointed end that pierces the tops of cans.

  • church membernounCompound term

    A religious person who goes to church regularly.

  • church modenounCompound term

    Any of a system of modes used in Gregorian chants up until 1600.

  • church mousenounCompound term

    A fictional mouse created by Lewis Carroll.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • churchyardnounRelated term

    The yard associated with a church.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: service conducted in a house of worship

christian church

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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.