Other forms: parishes
A parish is the smallest local district, once tied to a church. The parish council, parish boundaries, the whole parish.
It is both an ecclesiastical unit and a civil one in England, and the two do not share the same boundaries, which confuses everybody. Parish registers of births, marriages and deaths are the backbone of family history. The Greek behind it means a dwelling beside.
1nounparishThe smallest local district, once tied to a church.
“The whole parish came to the church for the harvest festival.”
parish is a district.
Greek paroikia means a dwelling beside, from para, beside, plus oikos, a house.
Proto-Indo-European
*weyḱ-
Ancient Greek
παροικία — a dwelling abroad
Latin
parochia
Old French
paroisse
Middle English
parisshe
English, today
parish
From Middle English parisshe, from Old French paroisse (compare the obsolete variant paroch, from Anglo-Norman paroche, parosse), from Latin parochia, from Ancient Greek παροικία (“a dwelling abroad”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA