• IPA: /kənˈsɪstəɹi/

consistory (plural consistories)

1. A place of standing or staying together; hence, any solemn assembly or council.
   • 1671, John Milton, “Book the First”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: Printed by J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], OCLC 228732398 ↗:

     To council summons all his mighty peers, / Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, / A gloomy consistory.

2. The spiritual court of a diocesan bishop held before his chancellor or commissioner in his cathedral church or elsewhere.
3. An assembly of prelates; a session of the college of cardinals at Rome.
   • 1626, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, Or, A Naturall Historie: In Ten Centuries

     Pius […] [was] then hearing of causes in consistory.

4. A church tribunal or governing body, especially of elders in a Reformed church.
5. (obsolete) A civil court of justice.