Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A hedge-parson; specifically, in Ireland, formerly, a priest who had been admitted to orders directly from a hedge-school, without preparation in theological studies at a regular college.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Prior at length recollected himself sufficiently to be aware that he was compromising his dignity, by squabbling with such a hedge-priest as the

    Ivanhoe 2004

  • The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool and the boy: —

    Love’s Labour ’s Lost 2004

  • This worthy never prays, and can neither read nor write; but he knows a chapter or two of the Koran, recites audibly a long Ratib or task, morning and evening12, whence, together with his store of hashed Hadis (tradition), he derives the title of Widad or hedge-priest.

    First footsteps in East Africa 2003

  • She smiled at me now, still with that half-amused look, and I preened myself - I was seventeen, remember - and sized up her points while the father got himself another glass and damned Arnold for a puritan hedge-priest.

    Flashman Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1969

  • She smiled at me now, still with that half-amused look, and I preened myself - I was seventeen, remember - and sized up her points while the father got himself another glass and damned Arnold for a puritan hedge-priest.

    Flashman Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1969

  • As William Morris tells old John Ball, the 'rascal hedge-priest,' 'Mastership hath many shifts' before it finally goes down and out.

    Socialism As It Is A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement William English Walling

  • In fact, it would appear that St. Valentine was, literally, a hedge-priest.

    Prose Fancies Richard Le Gallienne 1906

  • He was a hedge-priest and wizard, not one of those who imbue men's minds with error by professing to teach their superstitions openly for money, but a hierophant of secret nocturnal mysteries.

    The History of Rome, Vol. V 1905

  • The Prior at length recollected himself sufficiently to be aware that he was compromising his dignity, by squabbling with such a hedge-priest as the Outlaw's chaplain, and being joined by his attendants, rode off with considerably less pomp, and in a much more apostolical condition, so far as worldly matters were concerned, than he had exhibited before this rencounter.

    Ivanhoe 1892

  • ` ` Thou be'st a hedge-priest, '' * said the Prior, in

    Ivanhoe 1892

Comments

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  • JM is astounded by way hedge-priests do their garnering these days.

    February 16, 2011