English edit

Etymology edit

un- +‎ clerical

Adjective edit

unclerical (comparative more unclerical, superlative most unclerical)

  1. Not clerical.
    • 1863, Bayard Taylor, The Lands of the Saracen[1]:
      The solitary muezzin, who cried the mughreb at the close of the fast, and lighted the lamps on his minaret, went through with his work in most unclerical haste, now that there was no one to notice him.
    • 1890, Grace & Philip Wharton, The Wits and Beaux of Society[2]:
      A more remorseless foe, however, than Foote appeared in the person of Charles Churchill, the wild and unclerical son of a poor curate of Westminster.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 162:
      She drew from her gloved palm her offering and extended it towards Brother Weldon, who with unclerical haste and noise took the office.
    • 1914, Various, The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII[3]:
      As they came to the churchyard, the grave-digger was just busy at a grave, and it was quiet about him; no sheep, no goat came and desecrated man's last resting-place; for in this village the churchyard was no pasture for unclerical animals.