Synonyms of clerics

clerics

noun

plural of cleric

as in priests

a person specially trained and authorized to conduct religious services in a Christian church

clerics were sharply divided on the issue of whether the war was morally justified

Synonyms & Similar Words

• priests
• preachers
• clergymen
• bishops
• clericals
• ministers
• pastors
• deacons
• ecclesiastics
• reverends
• prelates
• divines
• chaplains
• fathers
• clerks
• priestesses
• monks
• popes
• clergypersons
• churchmen
• archbishops
• missionaries
• abbots
• dominies
• vicars
• rectors
• padres
• deans
• presbyters
• friars
• deaconesses
• clergywomen
• confessors
• religious
• evangelists
• diocesans
• shepherds
• parsons
• curés
• mendicants
• archpriests
• missioners
• curates
• monastics
• revivalists
• monsignors
• abbés
• Holy Joes
• oblates
• sky pilots
• high priests
• missionizers
• high priestesses

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• laymen
• laypeople
• seculars
• lay readers
• lectors

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of clerics

In July, over 250 former lawmakers, clerics, professors and other public figures signed an anti-war petition warning of the costs of the conflict. — ABC News, 2 Aug. 2026

Voice of America’s Persian Service began airing in its current form in 1979, shortly after the Iranian Revolution toppled the Shah and installed the Islamist clerics who rule the country to this day. — Marc Fisher, New Yorker, 30 July 2026

Yet the mental horizons of Maucci and his associates were wider and more mobile than those of the big shots, small-time lawyers, and clerics who’d remained to vegetate in their old Lunigiana. — Literary Hub, 22 July 2026

Revolutionary Guard members and clerics mourn on the esplanade of the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla mosque. — Chantal Da Silva, NBC news, 3 July 2026

The procession will move to Qom, a stronghold of many senior Shiite clerics, and then to Mashhad, Khamenei’s birthplace. — Munir Ahmed, Los Angeles Times, 13 June 2026

The funeral ceremonies for Khamenei are expected to begin in Tehran, and the procession will move to Qom, a stronghold of many senior Shiite clerics, and then to Mashhad, his birthplace. — Munir Ahmed, Fortune, 11 June 2026

The group’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, who died in 2021, was one of the country’s most radical clerics. — Mostafa Salem, CNN Money, 9 May 2026

The text was first reviewed by three clerics and then copied by scribes onto marble for stonemasons to chisel. — Ethan Teekah, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 May 2026