noun. Laypeople considered as a group.

noun. All those persons who are not members of a given profession or other specialized field.

noun. The state of being a layman, or of not being in orders.

noun. The people, as distinguished from the clergy; the body of the people not in orders; laymen collectively.

noun. The people outside of a particular profession, as distinguished from those belonging to it; persons unskilled in a particular art or science, as distinguished from those who are professionally conversant with it.

noun. The people, as distinguished from the clergy; the body of the people not in orders.

noun. The state of a layman.

noun. Those who are not of a certain profession, as law or medicine, in distinction from those belonging to it.

noun. people of a church who are not ordained clergy or clerics.

noun. the common man or woman

noun. the unlearned, untrained or ignorant as in “The Layman’s Guide to Basket Weaving”

noun. in Christianity, members of a religious community that do not have the priestly responsibilities of ordained clergy

"Another great evil, arising from the peculiarity of the voluntary system is, that in any of the principal sects the power has been wrested from the clergy and assumed by the laity, who exercise an inquisition most injurious to the cause of religion: and to such an excess of tyranny is this power exercised, that it depends upon the _laity_, and not upon the"

ministry  profession  

lay  layman  

hoi polloi  mass  masses  multitude  people  

heterogeneity  

churchgoer  churchman  clergy  cleric  commonalty  

laymen  people  temporalty