CATHOLIC CHURCH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Catholic Church mean? 

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

1. any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• CATHOLIC CHURCH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of several churches claiming to have maintained historical continuity with the original Christian Church

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

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

Christian church; church (one of the groups of Christians who have their own beliefs and forms of worship)

Meronyms (members of "Catholic Church"):

Catholic (a member of a Catholic church)

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

Church of Rome; Roman Catholic; Roman Catholic Church; Roman Church; Western Church (the Christian Church based in the Vatican and presided over by a pope and an episcopal hierarchy)

Old Catholic Church (Catholic churches that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the 18th century)

Byzantine Church; Eastern Church (the Catholic Church as it existed in the Byzantine Empire)

Eastern Church; Eastern Orthodox; Eastern Orthodox Church; Orthodox Catholic Church; Orthodox Church (derived from the Byzantine Church and adhering to Byzantine rites)

Uniat Church; Uniate Church (any of several churches in eastern Europe or the Middle East that acknowledge papal authority but retain their own liturgy)

 Context examples 

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)

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)