ecclesiastical
/əˈkliː.ziˌæ.stɪ.kəl/adjective
ecclesiastical is spelled E-C-C-L-E-S-I-A-S-T-I-C-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is eclesiastical: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 68 of all searches for the word. Ecclesiastical is an adjective meaning “Of or pertaining to the church”.
How many letters and syllables are in ecclesiastical?
| Letters | 14: E-C-C-L-E-S-I-A-S-T-I-C-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 6 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.1 times per million words; the 15,146th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, eclesiastical, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell ecclesiastical?
Ecclesiastical is spelled E-C-C-L-E-S-I-A-S-T-I-C-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 68 of the searches for ecclesiastical in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is ecclesiastical?
Ecclesiastical appears 3.1 times per million words in written English, the 15,146th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce ecclesiastical?
- Canada /əˌkli.ziˈæ.stə.kəl/
- UK /əˈkliː.ziˌæ.stɪ.kəl/
Ecclesiastical has 6 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-ecclesiastical.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ecclesiastical
- more ecclesiastical comparative
- most ecclesiastical superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does ecclesiastical mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of or pertaining to the church.
ecclesiastical architecture
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate ecclesiastical?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of ecclesiastical: eccles..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Ecclesiastical in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense pertaining to the church:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ecclésiastique |
| German | kirchlich, geistlich, sakral, Sakral- |
| Portuguese | eclesiástico, eclesial |
| Spanish | eclesiástico, eclesial |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does ecclesiastical come from?
From Middle English ecclesiasticall, ecclesiasticalle, from Latin ecclēsiasticus + -al. By surface analysis, ecclesiastic + -al or ecclesiast + -ical.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).