Congregant

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈkɒŋ.ɡɹɪ.ɡənt/

Definitions

1. A person who regularly attends and is part of a religious gathering or church community
2. An individual belonging to a group that meets for worship or spiritual purposes
3. Someone who participates in a congregation, typically in a church or similar religious setting

Etymology: Latin "grex," meaning flock or herd, gave English a family of words about living and gathering in groups. "Gregarious" still describes animals that live together, and "egregious" comes from the same root. It once meant "standing out from the flock" in a praiseworthy sense, and only later drifted toward the sense of "outrageously bad." A congregant is built from "congregare," meaning to gather into a flock, which combines "com-" ("together") with "grex." The Latin "congregans" is a present participle, a form describing someone in the act of gathering, and the English ending "-ant" carries the same sense of a person doing something, as in "assistant" or "participant." The word shares its root with "congregation," the gathering itself, so the person and the group come from the same source.

Synonyms: member, attendee, worshipper, follower, participant

Antonyms: nonmember, outsider, dissenter, opponent, critic