Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CLER'GY, n. [Fr. clergé; Norm. clerkus, clerex, clergy, or clerks, and clergie, literature; Arm. cloer, the plural of cloarecq, a clerk; Corn. cloireg; Ir. cleir, clergy, and cleirrioch, a clerk or clergyman; L. clerus, clericus, which would seem to be from the Gr. κληρος, lot or portion, inheritance, estate, and the body of those who perform sacred duties; whence, κληροω, to choose by lot, to make a clerk, clericum facere. In 1 Peter v. 3, the word in the plural seems to signify the church or body of believers; it is rendered God's heritage. In W. cler signifies teachers or learned men of the druidical order; clerig, belonging to the cler, clerical. It. Sp. clero, from the Latin. The application of this word to ministers or ecclesiastical teachers seems to have originated in their possessions, or separate allotments of land; or from the Old Testament denomination of the priests, for the tribe of Levi is there called the lot, heritage, or inheritance of the Lord.]

1. The body of men set apart, and consecrated, by due ordination, to the service of God, in the Christian church; the body of ecclesiastics, in distinction from the laity. – Hooker. Encyc.
2. The privilege or benefit of clergy. If convicted of a clergyable felony, he is entitled equally to his clergy after as before conviction. – Blackstone. Benefit of clergy, in English law, originally the exemption of the persons of clergymen from criminal process before a secular judge; or a privilege by which a clerk or person in orders claimed to be delivered to his ordinary to purge himself of felony. But this privilege has been abridged and modified by various statutes. See Blackstone, b. 4, ch. 28. In the United States, no benefit of clergy exists.