church rate ExamplesWord Origin noun Ecclesiastical.
- (formerly in England and Ireland) a compulsory assessment imposed on the parishioners’ holdings of houses or land in order to repair the parish church and maintain its services.
Origin of church rate First recorded in 1705–15 Examples from the Web for church rate Historical Examples of church rate
A church-rate is also levied, to which it does not appear what response is made.
William Pepperell
The churchwardens were re-elected, and the church-rate was carried.
Walter Field
This is the principle on which it seems to me right to act in church-rate matters.
J. Baldwin Brown
It is wrong to compel, and wrong to refuse, the payment of a church-rate.
Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood
George MacDonald
Now I do not write all this for the sake of the church-rate question.
Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood
George MacDonald