priorate
(ˈpraɪərət)
[ad. late L. priōrāt-us (Tertull.) priority, preference, in med.L. the office of prior, a priory, f. prior prior a.: see -ate1.]
1. The office and dignity of a prior; also, the term of office of a prior: a. of an ecclesiastical prior or prioress.
| c 1400 Apol. Loll. 51 Wat euer clerk takiþ priorate, religioun, bischophed, or dignite of þe kirk. 1737 M. Johnson in Bibl. Topogr. Brit. (1790) III. 68 Sir John Weston, in whose priorate this exchange was made or confirmed. 1775 Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry xxiv. II. 112 Benoit's successour in the priorate of saint Genevieve was not equally attentive to the discipline and piety of his monks. 1854 Milman Lat. Chr. III. 363 That ascending ladder of ecclesiastical honours, the priorate, the abbacy, the bishopric, the metropolitanate. 1925 C. S. Durrant Link betw. Flemish Mystics & Eng. Martyrs i. x. 150 The Priorate of Mother Salome has ever been looked back to as a time when [etc.]. |
b. The dignity of prior in the Florentine republic: see prior n. 2 b.
| 1818 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1836) I. 86 Members of this family [the Pulci] were five times elected to the Priorate, one of the highest honours of the republic. 1872 Lowell Dante Prose Wks. 1890 IV. 130 Just before his assumption of the priorate, however, a new complication had arisen. 1874 M. Creighton Hist. Ess. i. (1902) 16 This priorate Dante calls the source of all his woes. |
2. A priory; also, the inmates as a community.
| 1749 Hist. Windsor viii. 107 The Manour, or Priorate of Munclane, in the County of Hereford..with all and singular its appurtenances. 1762 tr. Busching's Syst. Geog. IV. 264 Bethleem, a priorate, or college of regular canons of the order of St. Augustine. 1829 Southey in Q. Rev. XLI. 211 An address from the priorate of the order of Malta to the prince of Brazil, spoken by one of their Commendadores. 1844 S. R. Maitland Dark Ages 323 On his return he found that his uncle was dead, and that the see of Frisingen, as well as his own priorate, was filled by a successor. |