(n.) The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.
Example Sentences:
(1) Johnson wrote that "a clerisy of self-appointed internet witch doctors went completely loco – or perhaps boko is the word" when footage emerged of Jeremy Clarkson using the N-word.
Literati
Definition:
(n. pl.) Learned or literary men. See Literatus.
(pl. ) of Literatus
Example Sentences:
(1) The so-called literati aren't insular – this from a woman who ran the security service – but we aren't going to apologise for what we believe in either.
(2) The view of most people I've talked to is that he's improved the paper and there is a grudging respect for what he's done among what I would call the literati of US journalism."
(3) Opened by cousins Jack Kriendler and Charlie Berns in a row of brownstones on 1 January 1930, 21 has continued to draw the literati and glitterati to 52nd Street – nicknamed “Swing Street” – home to more than 30 speakeasies.
(4) Chris "Zipalong" Mullin invoked that illusory enemy, the "London literati" (I live in Belfast, so can disagree with him without fear of recrimination).
(5) This writer, not long from a very provincial colony, lost any residual awe for the metropolitan literati at a stroke.
(6) In this late life-time, he corresponded with scientists, literati, musicians, his son, and his grand-duke CARL AUGUST.
(7) Christensen said in a statement: “Styling themselves as ‘prominent Australians’, these elitist wankers include investment bankers, CEOs of major corporations such as Telstra, pretentious literati, professional activists and has-been celebrities.
(8) Today, this would be a telltale sign that a smidgen of marriage counselling might be in order, but in those dark, pre-therapy days such aid was not available to the literati.
(9) Here, a politician would get an aide to compile a list of books they were supposed to have read on holiday (cools ones to impress the literati, best-sellers to impress the rest) and then release it to the papers.
(10) He was partial to one of Ireland’s most iconic properties when in town, as were many of the visiting literati throughout the years, including William Makepeace Thackeray.
(11) Rimington, ably supported by Mullin, has effortlessly enraged the "London literati", inspiring headlines such as "Booker in crisis".
(12) They lived in the world of ideas, where Clifford's insubstantial writing had brought him a certain celebrity among the well-to-do London literati.
(13) His real market is in India where, still scorned by the literati, he is known to virtually every college student.
(14) The trouble is we should never underestimate the conservatism of the literati ...
(15) Indeed, this was less a book launch with wine-sipping literati than a raucous anti-Zuma rally attended by top dissidents Tokyo Sexwale, Mathews Phosa and rebels from the ANC youth league.
(16) This new middle-class audience – small entrepreneurs, managers, travel agents, salespeople, secretaries, clerks – has an appetite for literary entertainment that falls between the elite idiom of the cultivated literati, who might be familiar with the novels of Amitav Ghosh or Salman Rushdie, and the Indian English of the street and the supermarket.
(17) The Golden Notebook "We should never underestimate the conservatism of the literati ...
(18) Once more following the Sophien-Ausgabe of Weimar, Author gives an extract from GOETHE's Letters to literati, scientists, and princes of his time, concerning notices on his employment about sciences without botany.