Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Educated people considered as a group; the literati.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The clergy, as distinguished from the laity.
  • noun A body of clerks or learned men; the literati.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The literati, or well educated class.
  • noun The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
  • noun The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an educated and intellectual elite

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German Klerisei, clergy, from Medieval Latin clēricia, from Late Latin clēricus, priest; see clerk.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Introduced by Coleridge, apparently after German Clerisei; in late Latin clericia.

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Examples

Comments

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  • KLER-uh-see\, noun:

    The well educated class; the intelligentsia.

    March 23, 2007


  • One area in which the new "third sector"/quangocrat establishment dominates is innovation investment - it has become a powerful new class, for whom talking about innovation has largely replaced innovation itself. And here, it insists on taking control.
    'Amazingly, the rise of this micro-managing technocratic priesthood was predicted some 40 years ago by historian Daniel Bell. This academic-bureaucratic class even has a name: American sociologist Joel Kotkin calls it a "Clerisy". The Clerisy benefits, Kotkin explains, by increasing its role in directing investment - often to pet projects and causes.'

    December 13, 2013

  • It’s easy to thrive as a pharisee

    But better to boast a small heresy.

    Society talks

    Of the unorthodox

    And welcomes them into the clerisy.

    March 8, 2019

  • I was not familiar with the word clerisy until it popped up here as “Word of the Day” and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to use it without laughing: all I can see is clergy + heresy.

    March 8, 2019