pope
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An honorary title of the Roman Catholic bishop of Rome as father and head of his church, a sovereign of the Vatican city state.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pohpIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpoʊp
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
Roman Catholicism and generally
An honorary title of the Roman Catholic bishop of Rome as father and head of his church, a sovereign of the Vatican city state.
by extensionnow often ironic
Any similarly absolute and 'infallible' authority.
by extension
Any similar head of a religion.
uk
An effigy of the pope traditionally burnt in Britain on Guy Fawkes' Day and (occasionally) at other times.
A number of places in the United States
Alternative letter-case form of pope.
verb
intransitivecolloquial
To convert to Roman Catholicism.
intransitive or with 'it'
To act as or like a pope.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (Roman Catholicism and generally) An honorary title of the Roman Catholic bishop of Rome as father and head of his church, a sovereign of the Vatican city state.
Used this way, pope 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 pope
- “The Pope delivered a powerful speech to a large crowd in the city.”
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: honorary title of the Roman Catholic bishop of Rome as father and head of his 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.