ecumenical
adjective
Simple meaning
About the universal Church, representing the entire Christian world.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ehkyoomehnihkuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɛkjuˈmɛnɪkəl
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
ecclesiastical
Pertaining to the universal Church, representing the entire Christian world; interdenominational; sometimes by extension, interreligious.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (ecclesiastical) Pertaining to the universal Church, representing the entire Christian world; interdenominational; sometimes by extension, interreligious.
Used this way, ecumenical 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
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Nearby words
- oecumenical , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: pertaining to the universal 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.