first estate

1. 1.

   the clergy in France and the heads of the church in Britain

   SynonymsLords Spiritual

   Broaderestate of the realm

   United Kingdom · France

Questions about first estate

What does first estate mean?

first estate means "the clergy in France and the heads of the church in Britain".

What is another word for first estate?

Close synonyms include Lords Spiritual. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is first estate a common word?

first estate is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.