parish

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An administrative part of a diocese, especially an Anglican or Roman Catholic diocese, having its own church and a designated priest.
• noun The members of such a parish; a religious community attending one church.
• noun A political subdivision of a British county, usually corresponding in boundaries to an original ecclesiastical parish.
• noun An administrative subdivision in Louisiana that corresponds to a county in other US states.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In the game of curling, the ring in the center of which the tee is placed.
• noun In the early Christian ch., a district placed under the superintendence of a bishop; a diocese.
• noun In Great Britain and Ireland, a district or territorial division.
• noun Now, also, a civil division of the country for purposes of local self-government, such as the legal care of the poor, education, the regulation of sanitary matters, etc.: it is in general conterminous with the ecclesiastical parish. At present there are in England and Wales about 13,000 ecclesiastical parishes, and about 15,000 civil parishes, of which not more than 10,000 coincide with the ecclesiastical districts bearing the same name. In Scotland in 1888 there were 934 civil parishes or parishes proper (quoad omnia) and 386 parishes quoad sacra (that is, parishes in respect of things ecclesiastical only). There are several other minor classes of parishes, as the land-tax and Burial Act parishes in England, and the burghal and extra-burghal parishes in Scotland.
• noun In the United States: In colonial times, in some of the southern colonies, a subdivision of the county for purposes of local government.
• noun One of the 58 territorial divisions of Louisiana, corresponding to the county in other States.
• noun A local church or congregation and the geographical limits, generally imperfectly defined, within which its local work is mainly confined.
• noun An ecclesiastical society, not bounded by territorial limits, nor confined in its personnel to communicants, but composed of all those who choose to unite in maintaining Christian work and worship in a particular local church: used in this sense chiefly in New England.
• noun The inhabitants or members of a parish; specifically, in the United Kingdom, those inhabitants of a parish who are entitled to vote in a parish election.
• Of or belonging to a parish; parochial: as, the parish church or minister; parish records; the parish school.
• Maintained by the parish or by public charity: as, parish poor.
• Rustic; provincial.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Of or pertaining to a parish; parochial; ; maintained by the parish.
• adjective A layman who leads in the responses and otherwise assists in the service of the Church of England.
• adjective in Louisiana, a court in each parish.
• noun That circuit of ground committed to the charge of one parson or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein.
• noun The same district, constituting a civil jurisdiction, with its own officers and regulations, as respects the poor, taxes, etc.
• noun United States An ecclesiastical society, usually not bounded by territorial limits, but composed of those persons who choose to unite under the charge of a particular priest, clergyman, or minister; also, loosely, the territory in which the members of a congregation live.
• noun In Louisiana, a civil division corresponding to a county in other States.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun In the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Church or certain civil government entities such as the state of Louisiana, an administrative part of a diocese that has its own church.
• noun The community attending that church; the members of the parish.
• noun A civil subdivision of a British county, often corresponding to an earlier ecclesiastical parish.
• noun An administrative subdivision in Louisiana that is equivalent to a county in other U.S. states.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the local subdivision of a diocese committed to one pastor
• noun a local church community