Dictionary

clerisy en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈklɛɹɪsi/

Etymology

From Ancient Greek κλῆρος (klêros) + -isy. Introduced by Coleridge, based on German Clerisei (modern Klerisei), from Late Latin clēricus.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
   • 2022: We invent ourselves as American writers—it's not a clerisy we’re born into... — Edward Hirsch, The Heart of American Poetry (Library of America, 2022)
   • 2003: By the nineteenth-century clerisy […] Christianity itself, yoked to material civilization, came to be questioned as gross and vulgar. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 432)
   • 2016: Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language. — George F. Will, Washington Post, 18 Nov, 2016
2. (countable, uncountable) The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.
   • Few men have ever had a stronger conviction of their clerisy, of their belonging to the clerkly caste of the responsibles. 1986, Kenneth Rexroth, Bradford Morrow, Classics Revisited, page 174:

Forms

Synonyms

intelligentsia