" diocese "

[Noun]  | "di*o*cese" | \ ˈdī-ə-səs \

1: the territorial jurisdiction of a bishop

Origin: 14th century ;

 Middle English diocise, dyoces, borrowed from Anglo-French diocise, dyocés, borrowed from Late Latin diocēsis, dioecēsis "administrative district, province, group of provinces (in the later Roman Empire), jurisdiction of a bishop" (Latin, "administrative district"), borrowed from Late Greek dioíkēsis "administration, control, ordering, civil or ecclesiastical group of provinces, jurisdiction of a bishop," going back to Greek, "management, administration," from dioikē-, variant stem of dioikéō, dioikeîn "to control, manage, look after" (from di- {see: |di-|dia-} + oikeîn "to live, have one's home, order, govern," derivative of oîkos "house, home") + -sis {see: |-sis|-sis} {mat|vicinity|};

  * Note : In early Modern English diocise, passed on from Middle English, competed unsuccessfully with the Latin/French-influenced forms diocess and diocese. The variant diocess was predominant in the eighteenth century and is the only form entered in Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755). The situation had changed, at least in the U.S., by the early nineteenth century: Noah Webster, in his American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), enters only diocese, and regards diocess as "a very erroneous orthography.";