CLERICAL

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does clerical mean? 

• CLERICAL (adjective)
  The adjective CLERICAL has 3 senses:

1. of or relating to clerks

2. of or relating to the clergy

3. appropriate for or engaged in office work

  Familiarity information: CLERICAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLERICAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to clerks

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

clerical work

Pertainym:

clerk (an employee who performs clerical work (e.g., keeps records or accounts))

Derivation:

clerk (an employee who performs clerical work (e.g., keeps records or accounts))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or relating to the clergy

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Context example:

clerical collar

Pertainym:

clergy (in Christianity, clergymen collectively (as distinguished from the laity))

Derivation:

clergy (in Christianity, clergymen collectively (as distinguished from the laity))

Sense 3

Meaning:

Appropriate for or engaged in office work

Context example:

the clerical staff

Similar:

white-collar (of or designating salaried professional or clerical work or workers)

Derivation:

clerk (an employee who performs clerical work (e.g., keeps records or accounts))

 Context examples 

“You may remember my seemingly irrelevant question as to this clerical gentleman’s left ear. You did not answer it.”

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have already made some inquiries at a clerical agency, and they tell me that there was a man of that name in orders, whose career has been a singularly dark one.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Collins listened to her with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she ceased speaking, replied thus: My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in your excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom—provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I am about to establish myself in one of the provincial towns of our favoured island (where the society may be described as a happy admixture of the agricultural and the clerical), in immediate connexion with one of the learned professions.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The pawner was a large, clean-shaven man of clerical appearance.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)