sacerdotal
adjective
Did you know?
Sacerdotal is one of a host of English words derived from the Latin adjective sacer, meaning "sacred." Other words derived from sacer include desecrate, sacrifice, sacrilege, consecrate, sacrament, and even execrable (developed from the Latin word exsecrari, meaning "to put under a curse"). One surprising sacer descendant is sacrum, referring to the series of five vertebrae in the lower back connected to the pelvis. In Latin this bone was called the os sacrum, or "holy bone," a translation of the Greek hieron osteon.
Synonyms
- clerical
- clerkly
- ministerial
- pastoral
- priestly
Example Sentences
Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 1 Aug. 2022 Diminution drains this office of the sacerdotal pomposities that have encrusted it. Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, 1 Aug. 2017 The brand inspires a sacerdotal devotion in many of its workers (its archives contain the papers of one of the atelier’s premieres, or heads, who served from 1947 to 1990). Matthew Schneier, New York Times, 1 July 2017 Word History
Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin sacerdotalis, from sacerdot-, sacerdos priest, from sacer sacred + -dot-, -dos (akin to facere to make) — more at sacred, do
15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
sacerdotal
adjective
Synonyms & Similar Words
- ministerial
- pastoral
- priestly
- clerical
- ecclesiastical
- ecclesiastic
- apostolic
- episcopal
- religious
- missionary
- divine
- papal
- pontifical
- clerkly
- sacramental
- diaconal
- diocesan
- evangelical
- evangelic
- monastic
- patriarchal
- churchly
- canonical
- holy
- conventual
- caliphal
- mendicant
- rabbinic
- rabbinical
- monachal
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
- secular
- temporal
- lay
- nonclerical