ordination

A religious ceremony in which someone is officially made a priest.

• We attended his ordination.
• The bishop led the ordination ceremony.
• Her family gathered in the cathedral for the ordination.

Common phrases: ordination ceremony, priestly ordination

The act of officially making someone a priest or another religious leader, or the status this gives them.

• Her ordination allowed her to lead services.
• He applied for ordination after years of study.
• The church recognized his ordination.

How to use it: ordination as something (She sought ordination as a minister.); ordination to something (His ordination to the priesthood followed years of training.)

Common phrases: ordination to priesthood, seek ordination

A ceremony in which someone officially becomes a Buddhist monk or nun.

• His ordination took place at the temple.
• She received full ordination as a Buddhist nun.
• The community gathered to celebrate the monks’ ordination.

Common phrases: buddhist ordination, full ordination

A method of showing relationships between many groups of data by placing them on a chart.

• The ordination plot shows three groups of sites.
• We used ordination to compare plant communities.
• Different ordination methods produced similar patterns in the data.

Common phrases: ordination analysis, ordination plot, ordination method