noun
- Land belonging to a parish church or to a clergyman as part of their benefice.
- Soil or earth; the ground.
Usage: chiefly British; historical or ecclesiastical
Usage: archaic or poetic
Examples
- The vicar farmed the glebe to supplement his modest income.
- The church's glebe provided pasture for livestock.
- In medieval times, the glebe was an important source of revenue for the parish priest.
- The old glebe house still stands near the village church.
- Poets often wrote of tilling the glebe in rural landscapes.