church

• a building for worship

• the company of all Christians

• a specific denomination or congregation

• religious as opposed to secular power

• [v.] to purify a woman and receive her back into the congregation after childbirth

From Old English circice from Greek kuriakon [doma] ‘the Lord’s house’ from kurios (the Lord; as an adjective, authoritative, appointed) from the root *keue- "swell".

Church is an early word to enter English, coming from the period of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity at the end of the 6^th c. C. E. or possibly from the Christianized Goths and spread by them to other Germanic tribes.

angel     nun         alms          Mass     pope      cope

altar        cleric          deacon      passion     priest      monk

relic        creed          noon          paradise     abbot      apostate

cross     Sabbath     preach      minister     bishop      disciple

devil        offer          alb              acolyte     apostle      dean

martyr      saint

Although the majority of these words are from Latin, many others are from Greek and some are from Hebrew (Sabbath) and Persian (paradise).

Other words from the same root are: cave, codeine, accumulate, kirk, cyma, enceinte.

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