Bishop

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈbɪʃəp/

Definitions

1. A high-ranking Christian clergyman who supervises a diocese and its priests
2. A leader within the Christian faith who has authority over a diocese and its clergy while often performing ceremonial roles and providing spiritual guidance
3. A senior ecclesiastical leader responsible for overseeing the spiritual and administrative functions of a diocese, often guiding priests and community members

Etymology: The most surprising fact about "bishop" is that it began life as a word for a civil official. The Greek "episkopos" was built from "epi" ("over") and "skopos" ("watcher"), so it meant "overseer" or "supervisor," and Greek and Latin speakers used it generally and as a title for administrators before the church adopted it for its own offices. The same root gave English "scope" and "-scope" in later scientific coinages, so a bishop is, etymologically, someone who keeps watch from above. The word reached English through Latin "episcopus," which passed into spoken Vulgar Latin as something like "ebiscopus," and from there into Proto-West Germanic as "biskop." Old English "bisceop" carried it into the language, and its descendant is the modern form. Many European languages share the term for the same office, all descending from that Greek original. English had another option. The Tyndale Bible rendered the same Greek word as "overseer," a native English term that never displaced the borrowed one, so the church office kept the Greek-derived name while the plain English sense survives in the translation.

Synonyms: prelate, clergyman, churchman, minister, pastor

Antonyms: layman, secularist, nonbeliever, atheist, agnostic