clerisy

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)An elite group of intellectuals; learned people, the literati.

   “2003: By the nineteenth-century clerisy […] Christianity itself, yoked to material civilization, came to be questioned as gross and vulgar. — Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason (Penguin 2004, p. 432)”

   “2016: Only the highly educated write so badly. Indeed, the point of such ludicrous prose is to signal membership in a closed clerisy that possesses a private language. — George F. Will, Washington Post, 18 Nov, 2016”

   “2022: We invent ourselves as American writers—it's not a clerisy we’re born into... — Edward Hirsch, The Heart of American Poetry (Library of America, 2022)”

2. (countable, uncountable)The clergy, or their opinions, as opposed to the laity.

   “Few men have ever had a stronger conviction of their clerisy, of their belonging to the clerkly caste of the responsibles.”