pope

CEFRB1

/pəʊp/

noun

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    noun

    The leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

  2. 02

    noun

    Extra detail

    An honorary title of the Roman Catholic bishop of Rome as father and head of his church, a sovereign of the Vatican city state.

Examples

  • As I read through the letters, I realized that the Pope was the true culprit.

  • The pope is meeting victims of pedophile priests in London.

At a glance

Sits at B1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /pop/
  • /poʊp/

Deep Dive

noun

Extra meanings

  1. Any similar head of a religion.

  2. A theocrat, a priest-king, including (at first especially) over the imaginary land of Prester John or (now) in figurative and alliterative uses.

  3. Any similarly absolute and 'infallible' authority.

More examples

In context

  • Þa wæs in þa tid Uitalius papa þæs apostolican seðles aldorbiscop.

  • We have a Pope.

  • 2007 May 5, Ted Koppel (guest), Wait, Wait... Don’t tell me!, National Public Radio I really did want to interview the pope. Any pope. I'm not particular.

Synonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The blank, as head of the Catholic Church, resides in Vatican City.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

noun

From Middle English pope, popa, from Old English pāpa, from Vulgar Latin papa (title for priests and bishops, esp. and by 8th c. only the bishop of Rome), from early Byzantine Greek παπᾶς (papâs, title for priests and bishops, especially by 3rd c. the bishop of Alexandria), from late Ancient Greek πάπας (pápas, title for priests and bishops, in the sense of spiritual father), from πάππας (páppas, “papa, daddy”).