parish

Word family

• parishioner
  nounC2
• parochial
  adjectiveC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

These four words all describe a religious or local-area unit, but they differ in size and in what they group together. A 'parish' is a small area looked after by one priest, with its own single church — for example, the village parish of St. Mark. A 'diocese' is much larger, often covering many cities and dozens of parishes, and is led by a bishop. A 'congregation' is the people who actually gather for a service; you can speak to a congregation, but you cannot speak to a parish in the same direct way, because a parish includes the whole area and everyone in it. A 'ward', in church English, names a smaller local unit (especially in the Mormon church) and in civil English, an electoral subdivision — narrower than a civil parish. So: the bishop visits the diocese, the priest serves the parish, and on Sunday morning the priest preaches to the congregation.

Common collocations

Etymology

Parish reached English in the 1300s through Old French 'paroisse', which came from Late Latin 'parochia'. That Latin word was a reshaping of Greek 'paroikia', meaning a 'sojourning' or a settlement of people living near each other ('para-' beside + 'oikos' house). Early Christians used the term for a community of believers living close together; over the centuries the meaning narrowed to the area looked after by one local church. From the 1600s onward, English usage extended naturally from the church area to the people in it, and in England further to a small unit of civil local government that often kept the same boundaries as the old church district.