Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MIN'IS-TRY, n. [L. ministerium.]

1. The office, duties or functions of a subordinate agent of any kind.
2. Agency; service; aid; interposition; instrumentality. He directs the affairs of this world by the ordinary ministry of second causes. Atterbury.
3. Ecclesiastical function; agency or service of a minister of the Gospel or clergymen in the modern church, or of priests, apostles and evangelists in the ancient. Acts i. Rom. xii. 2 Tim. iv. Num. iv.
4. Time of ministration; duration of the office of a minister, civil or ecclesiastical. The war with France was during the ministry of Pitt.
5. Persons who compose the executive government or the council of a supreme magistrate; the body of ministers of state. Swift.
6. Business; employment. He abhorred the wicked ministry of arms. Dryden.