conclavist

[ kon-kley-vist, kong- ]

noun

1. either of two persons who attend upon a cardinal at a conclave, one usually being an ecclesiastical secretary and the other a personal servant.

Word History and Origins

Origin of conclavist¹

1590–1600; < Italian conclavista < Medieval Latin conclāv ( e ) conclave + -ista -ist

Example Sentences

Each cardinal is accompanied by a clerk or secretary, known for this reason as a conclavist, and by one servant only.

From Project Gutenberg

Any conclavist who may leave the conclave cannot on any account return.

From Project Gutenberg

A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop who knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist; you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, and behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot.

From Project Gutenberg

The Cardinal of Cl****** T******* was a merry little man, who displayed his red stockings beneath his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred of the Encyclopaedia, and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, at that epoch, passed through the Rue M***** on summer evenings, where the hotel de Cl****** T******* then stood, halted to listen to the shock of the balls and the piercing voice of the Cardinal shouting to his conclavist, Monseigneur Cotiret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste: "Mark, Abb�, I make a cannon."

From Project Gutenberg