Congregations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Groups of people gathered for religious worship ; collections of individuals assembled for a shared goal or activity
2. Assemblies attending a place of worship together ; gatherings of people united by a common interest or objective
3. Bodies of worshippers meeting for religious services ; congregations representing a group of people gathered for the same aims

Etymology: Tyndale's choice of "congregation" was a deliberate break with tradition. When he translated the New Testament into English in the 1520s, he needed a word for the Greek "ekklēsia," which literally meant an assembly of people called together, such as a citizens' meeting in an ancient Greek city. The Latin Bible had rendered it as "ecclesia," and English readers already knew "church," but Tyndale chose "congregation" instead, drawing on Latin "congregatio," a gathering or herding together into a flock. The word had been built from "congregate," meaning to gather together, plus the suffix "-ion," which turns a verb into a noun for an act or result. Its earlier English sense was simply a gathering of people or things. Tyndale's usage was so influential that 16th-century Reformers preferred it to "church," so that the plural "congregations" came to name the local bodies of worshippers that meet for services. The plural "congregations" also carries the wider sense of any group gathered for a shared purpose, which grew naturally from the same underlying idea of people brought together into one body.

Synonyms: assemblies, gatherings