Diocesan

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /dʌɪˈɒsɪsÉ™n/
• US IPA: /daɪˈɑsɪsÉ™n/

Origin

From Middle French diocesain.

Full definition of diocesan

Adjective

1. Pertaining to a diocese.
• 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 378:Diocesan bureaucracies were both symptom and cause of this.

Noun

1. The bishop of a diocese.
2. An inhabitant of a diocese.
• 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 121:The bishop of Chartres indignantly informed the king that his diocesans were dying like flies and eating grass like sheep, and indeed both the king and Fleury got a fright when their coaches were stopped in the Paris countryside by peasants crying out ‘Famine! Bread!’ rather than ‘Vive le Roi!’