seminary

noun

sem·​i·​nary ˈse-mə-ˌner-ē 

plural seminaries

1

: an environment in which something originates and from which it is propagated

a seminary of vice and crime

2

a

: an institution of secondary or higher education

b

: an institution for the training of candidates for the priesthood, ministry, or rabbinate

Synonyms

• academe
• academy
• school

Examples of seminary in a Sentence

a seminary exclusively for women

some claimed that orphanages were seminaries of sin and petty crime, turning out juvenile delinquents by the score

Recent Examples on the Web

Adding a complication, Netanyahu also has faced protests by ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators, angry at the removal of exemptions that have kept young students from religious seminaries from compulsory military service. —NBC News, 2 Apr. 2024

The Israeli Supreme Court last week ordered the government to stop subsidizing Jewish religious seminaries whose students defied service orders. —Joshua Berlinger, CNN, 1 Apr. 2024

An unwieldy right-wing alliance of secular and ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, the coalition’s members are divided about whether the state should continue to allow young ultra-Orthodox men to study at religious seminaries instead of serving in the military, as most other Jewish Israelis do. —Johnatan Reiss, New York Times, 30 Mar. 2024

His nearly two decades teaching canon law and moral theology at a Chicago seminary shaped his perspective to be clear about church teachings, Avella said. —Sophie Carson, Journal Sentinel, 12 Mar. 2024

At a religious seminary, similarly devout students gathered to hear an officer talk about his military duties. —Natan Odenheimer, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2024

Priests who operated plantations and sold people established the first Catholic seminary. —Rachel Hatzipanagos, Washington Post, 10 July 2023

According to the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, 35 percent of America’s nearly 5,000 seminarians have been impacted by FOCUS, the campus ministry group, and some seminaries are seeing surging enrollment. —Tim Busch, National Review, 23 Dec. 2023

In this culture of the physical imbued with the sacred, Najaf and Karbala, with their grand ayatollahs and seminaries, along with the mosque in Kufa, where Ali died, form the points of a sacred triangle. —Aatish Taseer, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2023

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, seedbed, nursery, from Latin seminarium, from semin-, semen seed

First Known Use

1542, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Phrases Containing seminary

• major seminary
• minor seminary

Kids Definition

seminary

noun

sem·​i·​nary ˈsem-ə-ˌner-ē 

plural seminaries

1

: a private school at or above the high school level

2

: a school for the training of priests, ministers, or rabbis

Etymology

Middle English seminary "seedbed, nursery, from Latin seminarium (same meaning), from semen "seed"

Word Origin

The English word seminary and its Latin source seminarium, a derivative of semen, "seed," both originally denoted a nursery for young plants. Roman authors sometimes used the Latin word figuratively, but English has gone much further in extending the meaning of the word, while the old sense "nursery for plants" is now obsolete. The use of seminary in reference to training schools for Roman Catholic clergy dates from the 16th century. Today the word refers equally to Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish colleges for training priests, ministers, or rabbis. Seminary has also been applied to other kinds of schools. When they were first formed in the 19th century, colleges for women were called "female seminaries" or "seminaries for young ladies."