Clerisy

Clerisy: [ˈklerəsē] NOUN a distinct class of learned or literary people

Context: One can believe simultaneously that the press must remain free and that it has built itself into a ersatz clerisy that regards its primary job not as conveying information in as effective a manner as possible but as translating writs for the benighted public, the better to save its soul.

 Source: National review; Feb. 11, 2019; p 30; Bad, Press by Charles C. W. Cooke.

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