CATHOLIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Catholic mean? 

• CATHOLIC (noun)
  The noun CATHOLIC has 1 sense:

1. a member of a Catholic church

  Familiarity information: CATHOLIC used as a noun is very rare.

• CATHOLIC (adjective)
  The adjective CATHOLIC has 2 senses:

1. of or relating to or supporting Catholicism

2. free from provincial prejudices or attachments

  Familiarity information: CATHOLIC used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CATHOLIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A member of a Catholic church

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("Catholic" is a kind of...):

Christian (a religious person who believes Jesus is the Christ and who is a member of a Christian denomination)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "Catholic"):

Anglican Catholic (a member of the Anglican Church who emphasizes its Catholic character)

Greek Catholic (a member of the Greek Orthodox Church)

Roman Catholic (a member of the Roman Catholic Church)

Uniat; Uniate; Uniate Christian (a member of the Uniat Church)

Bishop of Rome; Catholic Pope; Holy Father; pontiff; pope; Roman Catholic Pope; Vicar of Christ (the head of the Roman Catholic Church)

Holonyms ("Catholic" is a member of...):

Catholic Church (any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church)

Derivation:

Catholic (of or relating to or supporting Catholicism)

• CATHOLIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to or supporting Catholicism

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

the Catholic Church

Pertainym:

Catholicism (the beliefs and practices of a Catholic Church)

Derivation:

Catholic (a member of a Catholic church)

Catholicism (the beliefs and practices of a Catholic Church)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Free from provincial prejudices or attachments

Context example:

catholic in one's tastes

Similar:

broad-minded (inclined to respect views and beliefs that differ from your own)

Derivation:

catholicity (the quality of being universal; existing everywhere)

 Context examples 

Well, this dead man had some Catholic emblem round his neck, and that, along with his colour, made me think he was from the South.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I shall grow more catholic in time, but at present I can't help being jealous of those ghosts of the past, and you know your past is full of ghosts.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He rained upon it curses from God and High Heaven, and withered it with a heat of invective that savoured of a mediæval excommunication of the Catholic Church.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And then, France had increased by leaps and bounds, reaching out to the north into Belgium and Holland, and to the south into Italy, whilst we were weakened by deep-lying disaffection among both Catholics and Presbyterians in Ireland.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I, too, covet that, but not as a necklace. Ah, no! To me it is a rosary, and as such I should use it like a good catholic," said Esther, eyeing the handsome thing wistfully.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mrs. Barclay was, it appears, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, and had interested herself very much in the establishment of the Guild of St. George, which was formed in connection with the Watt Street Chapel for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Our analysis suggests that this same pulsar could be responsible for a decade-long puzzle about why one type of cosmic particle is unusually abundant near Earth, said Mattia Di Mauro, an astrophysicist at the Catholic University of America in Washington and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

(NASA’s Fermi Mission Links Nearby Pulsar’s Gamma-ray ‘Halo’ to Antimatter Puzzle, NASA)

A courtesy title for a person who supervises a number of local churches or a diocese, being in the Greek, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and other churches a member of the highest order of the ministry.

(Bishop, NCI Thesaurus)