Meaning

A solemn assembly or council..

Definitions by Sense

1. A solemn assembly or council.
2. The spiritual court of a diocesan bishop held before his chancellor or commissioner in his cathedral church or elsewhere.
3. An assembly of prelates; a session of the College of Cardinals at Rome.
4. A church tribunal or governing body, especially of elders in a Reformed church.
5. (obsolete, Early Modern) A civil court of justice.

Example Sentences

To council summons all his mighty peers, / Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, / A gloomy consistory.

1860-1876, Walter Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury In 1551 we find Bertholier excommunicated by the consistory because he would not allow that he had done wrong in asserting that he was as good a man as Calvin

Pius […][was] then hearing of causes in consistory.

And so were many greate and heighnous maters Obiected against S. Ambrose, because he refused to haue the cause betwene himselfe and the Heretike Auxentius, to be tried in the Consistorie of the Emperour, before Secular Iudges.

Word Forms

• consistories

Related Words

When Should You Use Consistory?

Use consistory when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

Practice This Word

Frequently Asked Questions