diocesen.

Etymology: Middle English diocise, etc., < Old French diocise (diozcise, 13th cent. in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter), < medieval Latin diocēsis, for Latin diœcēsis a governor's jurisdiction, a district, in later ecclesiastical Latin a bishop's jurisdiction, a diocese, < Greek διοίκησις, originally ‘housekeeping’, hence ‘management, administration, government, the province of a (Roman) governor’, and in Byzantine Greek ‘a bishop's jurisdiction, a diocese’, < διοικεῖν to keep house, to manage, administer, govern, < δι-, δια- through, thoroughly + οἰκεῖν to inhabit, occupy, manage. Under Latin influence at the Renaissance, the form became in French and English dioces; whence, for phonetic reasons, in French diocèse, in English diocesse, diocess. Diocess was the classical English type from the 16th to the end of the 18th cent.; it was the only form recognized by Dr. Johnson and the other 18th century lexicographers, and was retained by some (notably by the Times newspaper) in the 19th cent., in which, however, diocese (as in French) has become the established spelling. In Scotch, diocis(e, lost the terminal s in the singular, and was reduced to diocie, diocy. The Greek-Latin word was also independently adapted as diˈocesy, -ie: compare paralysis, French paralysie, palsy. (Compare Provençal diocesa, diocezí, Spanish diˈocesis, Portuguese diocese, Italian diˈocesi, -cese.)