clerisy

[ kler-uh-see ]

noun

1. learned persons as a class; literati; intelligentsia.

Word History and Origins

Origin of clerisy¹

1818; < German Klerisei clergy < Medieval Latin clēricia, equivalent to clēric ( us ) cleric + -ia -ia; introduced by S.T. Coleridge

Example Sentences

When Buddhism was joined to Western science, it would generate its own clerisy and become not a thing of infinite passion but a sort of cult, specifically a cult of expertise.

From Salon

Obscurantism enveloped in opacity is the academics’ way of assigning themselves status as members of a closed clerisy indulging in linguistic fads.

From Washington Post

Only those the board licenses are admitted to the clerisy uniquely entitled to publicly discuss engineering.

From Washington Post

Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language.

From Washington Post

You have never met a more cocksure lot than the monetary-policy clerisy.

From Wall Street Journal