kirk
/kəːk
/noun Scottish & Northern English
1A church.Church steeples in parish kirks were used as jails....
- Here also there was an ambitious programme of church building in the twelfth century, as favoured churches and chapels were transformed into parish kirks.
- A major benefit that flowed from the Reformation was the spread of education in Scotland, based on John Knox's dream of a kirk and a schoolhouse for every parish in the land.
2 (the Kirk or the Kirk of Scotland) The Church of Scotland as distinct from the Church of England or from the Episcopal Church in Scotland.And since these people were Kirk of Scotland - oh horrors - they would therefore have to leave town also....
- For that paternal love he hath for and towards the propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, agreeable to the Articles of the Kirk of Scotland in the Presbyterian Faith.
- In the year 1636, the Bishops framed a book of Canons and constitutions for governing the Kirk of Scotland.
Origin
Middle English: from Old Norse kirkja, from Old English cirice (see church).
church from Old English:
The Old English word church, then spelled circe or cirice, is related to German Kirche, Dutch kerk, and Scots kirk (Middle English). The source of all these words is medieval Greek kurikon, from Greek kuriakon dōma, ‘Lord's house’, based on kurios ‘master or lord’.