[ noun ] a person authorized to conduct religious worship <noun.person> clergymen are usually called ministers in Protestant churches
Parson \Par"son\, n. [OE. persone person, parson, OF. persone, F. personne person, LL. persona (sc. ecclesiae), fr. L. persona a person. See {Person}.] 1. (Eng. Eccl. Law) A person who represents a parish in its ecclesiastical and corporate capacities; hence, the rector or incumbent of a parochial church, who has full possession of all the rights thereof, with the cure of souls.
2. Any clergyman having ecclesiastical preferment; one who is in orders, or is licensed to preach; a preacher.
He hears the parson pray and preach. --Longfellow.
{Parson bird} (Zo["o]l.), a New Zealand bird ({Prosthemadera Nov[ae]seelandi[ae]}) remarkable for its powers of mimicry and its ability to articulate words. Its color is glossy black, with a curious tuft of long, curly, white feathers on each side of the throat. It is often kept as a cage bird.
Alan Ayckbourn's "Woman in Mind," at the Manhattan Theatre Club through Sunday, traces the mental disintegration of a parson's wife by putting her fantasy life onstage alongside her humdrum reality.
As she warbled "I fear my joy" with papin in the parlor, the parson and his other daughter sat in the kitchen listening, clutching hands and trembling.