Definition of "curacy" [cu•ra•cy]

• The office, duties, or term of office of a curate. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "His curacy was a post to be occupied by some feebler man than Felix; a man whose powers were only equal to the quiet work of carrying on the labors begun by his rector."
• "We knew Fr John Tolkien, son of J R R Tolkien, during his curacy at the English Martyrs, Birmingham, a parish with more than 7,000 parishioners."
• "The Brontës 'father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, had come a long way from a two-room cottage in Drumballyroney in County Down to study theology at St John's College, Cambridge, and then be appointed to a perpetual curacy in Haworth."