Dictionary

churchish en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /-əʃ/ (US)
• /ˈtʃɜːtʃɪʃ/ (UK)
• /-əʃ/ (UK)
• /ˈt͡ʃɚt͡ʃɪʃ/ (US)

Etymology

From church + -ish.

Meanings

1. (rare) Like a church; (solidly or piously) Christian.
   • He does not embrace with the same churchish charity all of the poor, white as well as black, as Dr. King docs in demanding a "Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged" — a federal government effort to compensate for deprivation and discrimination. 1964, New South, volumes 19-20, Southern Regional Council, page 202:
   • Characters drift against a churchish background; the central women like the novel do not possess Pym's usual exuberance and irony. Cooley analyzes a passage to show how Pym here subordinates comedy to realism. 1998, Four British Women Novelists: Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Pym: An Annotated and Critical Secondary Bibliography, Scarecrow Press, page 501:
   • Two children, a boy and a girl in naught but their shirts and barefoot, walked behind the churchish crowd and watched with studious intent the behaviour of their children,[…] 1983, Fierce, Fine World, Raduga Publishers, page 16:
2. (comparative, rare) Participating in the world at large; ecumenical, mainstream, non-insular.
   • Simplistically put, churchish British national revivals compare to semi-churchish Australian revivals, to semi-churchish regional Canadian revivals, and un-churchish American national revivals. 1997 February 17, Mark Hutchinson, “‘Up from Downunder’: An Australian View of Canadian Evangelicanism”, in Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience, McGill-Queen's Press, →ISBN, page 24:
   • In previous centuries, both the sectish and churchish styles of evangelicalism had been evident, but in different movements (like the Salvation Army versus evangelical Anglicans) or in the same movement at different times (like Methodism in the eighteenth century versus Methodism in the late nineteenth). 1998, John Gordon Stackhouse, Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: An Introduction to Its Character, Regent College Publishing, →ISBN, page 197:

Forms

Synonyms

churchly · churchy · churchical · churchy · ecclesiastic · ecclesiastical · churchlike · churchical · churchlike · ecclesial · churchish