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Glite Dictionary
🏰 Church property 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Lay church members
temporalty

temporalty

9.9
People who belong to a church but are not priests
  • noun
  • /ˈtɛmpərəlti/
  • Archaic
translation icon : laicado
  • In medieval times, disputes sometimes arose between the clergy and the temporalty over land ownership.

Examples

  • The temporalty participated in the procession alongside the clergy.

  • It was the duty of the temporalty to support the church in matters outside spiritual affairs.

  • The temporalty plays a crucial role in the church's community.

  • Many members of the temporalty attend weekly meetings.

  • In medieval times, disputes sometimes arose between the clergy and the temporalty over land ownership.

  • It was the duty of the temporalty to support the church in matters outside spiritual affairs.

  • The temporalty participated in the procession alongside the clergy.

Synonyms

laity
vstemporalty
10 7.2

People in a church who are not its leaders

is the term for lay community members who lack priestly duties

Surface Forms

temporalty singular
temporalities plural

Morphology

temporalty = temporal (opaque) = temporal + ty

Although formed from 'temporal' + a nominalizing suffix, the meaning 'lay members of a religious community' is an archaic and domain-specific ecclesiastical sense that is not predictable for the average learner.

Etymology

Temporalty comes from temporal and the Latin root tempus meaning 'time', and in old use it meant the people of the world as opposed to the clergy. So, temporalty refers to the lay members who handle the church's 'worldly' matters.