ecclesia

From Latin ecclēsia, from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía). Doublet of Eccles.

• IPA^(key): /ɪˈkli.zi.ə/

ecclesia (plural ecclesiae or ecclesias)

1. (historical) The public legislative assembly of the Athenians.
2. (ecclesiastical) A church, either as a body or as a building.
   • 1961, Bryan R[onald] Wilson, “The History of Christadelphianism”, in Sects and Society: A Sociological Study of Three Religious Groups in Britain (Heinemann Books on Sociology), London: William Heinemann Ltd, →OCLC, part III (The Christadelphians), page 247:

     The 1880s were no more peaceful for the ecclesias than had been the 1870s. Generally membership was increasing; so much so in London that two new ecclesias were formed, leaving about 200 in the older ecclesia at Islington.

3. (biblical) The congregation, the group of believers, symbolic body or building.

• “ecclesia”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

From Latin ecclēsia, from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía, “gathering”).

ecclesia (plural ecclesias)

1. assembly
2. congregation

• eclesia (Medieval Latin)

Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (ekklēsía).

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ɛkˈkɫeː.si.a]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ekˈklɛː.s̬i.a]

ecclēsia f (genitive ecclēsiae); first declension

1. church (a house of worship)
   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Matthew 16.18:

     Et ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam.

     And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Douay-Rheims trans., Challoner rev.: 1752 CE)

2. (original sense) assembly (of free male citizens of Greek cities)
3. ecclesia

First-declension noun.

• “ecclesia”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• "ecclesia", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “ecclesia”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “ecclesia”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin