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priory

noun

Simple meaning

Religious residence in a monastery governed by a prior or a convent governed by a prioress.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

pryeree

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈpɹaɪɚi

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. Religious residence in a monastery governed by a prior or a convent governed by a prioress

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced (estimated)
Frequency
Uncommon
Formality
Technical

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: Religious residence in a monastery governed by a prior or a convent governed by a prioress

Used this way, priory 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.

alien priorypriory churchcathedral prioryaugustinian priorybenedictine priorydominican priorypriory schoolgrand priory

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • prioritynounDerived noun · specialist

    Status established in order of importance or urgency.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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What Does It Mean Here?

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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.