clerisy

Etymology
Introduced by Coleridge, based on (modern ), from.

Noun

 * 1) An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.
 * 2) * 2003: By the nineteenth-century clerisy Christianity itself, yoked to material civilization, came to be questioned as gross and vulgar. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 432)
 * 3) * 2016: Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language. — George F. Will, Washington Post, 18 Nov, 2016
 * 4) * 2022: We invent ourselves as American writers—it's not a clerisy we’re born into... — Edward Hirsch, The Heart of American Poetry (Library of America, 2022)
 * 5) The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.