Dictionary

churchlike en · ADJ

Etymology

From church + -like. Compare Scots kirklyk, kirklike (“ecclesiastical”).

Meanings

1. Resembling or befitting a church or a worship service.
   • This is […] a break with the practice at American diamond stores, where shopping for engagement rings is a solemnized and somewhat stressfully churchlike experience of awe and trembling before the altar of massive debt. 2009 January 29, Cintra Wilson, “These Jewels Look Smaller in France”, in The New York Times:
   • There are churchlike or synagoguelike chapels and leaders who deliver Sunday sermons, perform pastoral duties, and conduct "services," though without prayer to a deity. 1991 September 14, Paul Kurtz, “The Two Humanisms in Conflict: Religious vs. Secular”, in Free Inquiry, volume 11, number 4, page 49:
   • The court was filled. Some people even stood behind the churchlike benches in the rear. 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 13, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 69:
   • The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect […] 1847, Charlotte Brontë, chapter 5, in Jane Eyre:

Forms

Deriveds

unchurchlike

Synonyms

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