Other forms: congregations
The congregation is the people gathered for a religious service. A large congregation, address the congregation, the whole congregation stood.
It names the people rather than the building or the institution, which is the distinction that matters — a church can have a building and no congregation. Congregational churches take their name from the principle that each congregation governs itself. The Latin means to gather into a flock.
1nouncongregationThe people gathered for a religious service.
“The priest welcomed the congregation and asked them to stand for the first hymn.”
congregation is a gathering of people.
Latin congregatio comes from congregare, to gather into a flock — con plus grex, a flock.
Latin
congregātiō
Old French
congregacion
Middle English
congregacioun
English, today
congregation
Built from
From Middle English congregacioun, from Old French congregacion, from Latin congregātiō, itself from congregō (“to herd into a flock”). Adopted (1520s) by the English Bible translator William Tyndale, to render the Ancient Greek ἐκκλησία (“those called together, (popular) meeting”) (hence Latin ecclēsia) in his New Testament, and preferred by 16th century Reformers instead of church. by surface analysis, congregate + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA