The Collaborative International Dictionary
Clergy \Cler"gy\, n. [OE. clergie, clergi, clerge, OF. clergie, F. clergie (fr. clerc clerc, fr. L. clericus priest) confused with OF. clergi['e], F. clerg['e], fr. LL. clericatus office of priest, monastic life, fr. L. clericus priest, LL. scholar, clerc. Both the Old French words meant clergy, in sense 1, the former having also sense 2. See Clerk.]
The body of men set apart, by due ordination, to the service of God, in the Christian church, in distinction from the laity; in England, usually restricted to the ministers of the Established Church.
--Hooker.-
Learning; also, a learned profession. [Obs.]
Sophictry . . . rhetoric, and other cleargy.
--Guy of Warwick.Put their second sons to learn some clergy.
--State Papers (1515). -
The privilege or benefit of clergy.
If convicted of a clergyable felony, he is entitled equally to his clergy after as before conviction.
--Blackstone.Benefit of clergy (Eng., Law), the exemption of the persons of clergymen from criminal process before a secular judge -- a privilege which was extended to all who could read, such persons being, in the eye of the law, clerici, or clerks. This privilege was abridged and modified by various statutes, and finally abolished in the reign of George IV. (1827).
Regular clergy, Secular clergy See Regular, n., and Secular, a.
Wikipedia
Regular clergy, or just regulars, is applied in the Roman Catholic Church to clerics who follow a "rule" (Latin regula) in their life, those who are members of religious institutes. Formerly, it meant those who were members of Catholic religious orders, institutes in which at some least of the members made solemn profession. It contrasts with secular clergy.
Usage examples of "regular clergy".
So, the regular clergy in their triumph were soon as merry as the King.
Although the monks here constituted a religious order, as part of the Regular Clergy, they were completely independent and not subordinate to the archbishop's Secular Clergy.
Besides the large pectoral cross, there was nothing about him to suggest that he might be a member of the regular clergy.
I In the middle of this charity work, Abbot Ignacy became His Excellency Ignacy, Bishop of Cracow, and he stepped lightly from the regular clergy to the secular branch of the Church.
There were twelve hours of the same length in the army day, measured from dawn to dawn, and those hours were twice as long, on the average, as the hours used by the regular clergy.