1. A council or an assembly of church officials or churches; an ecclesiastical council.
2. A council or an assembly.

[Middle English, from Latin synodus, from Greek sunodos, meeting, assembly : sun-, syn- + hodos, way, course.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.