sexton
1 Americannoun
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an official of a church charged with taking care of the edifice and its contents, ringing the bell, etc., and sometimes with burying the dead.
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an official who maintains a synagogue and its religious articles, chants the designated portion of the Torah on prescribed days, and assists the cantor in conducting services on festivals.
noun
noun
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a person employed to act as caretaker of a church and its contents and graveyard, and often also as bell-ringer, gravedigger, etc
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another name for the burying beetle
Other Word Forms
- sextonship noun
- undersexton noun
Etymology
Origin of sexton
1275–1325; Middle English sexteyn, sekesteyn, syncopated variant of segerstane, secristeyn < Anglo-French segerstaine sacristan
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He then moved to Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a maintenance worker or sexton at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 23, 2024
It means I’m its chief executive officer, as well as its chief of police, tree warden and cemetery sexton, and I wind the clock in the Scotland Congregational Church.
From New York Times • May 7, 2022
Mark Sealey digs graves for a living - although the more accurate description for his job is a sexton.
From BBC • Jan. 26, 2022
Minacci, the sexton and Walmart worker, lives for his nights, his therapy.
From Washington Post • Mar. 24, 2020
The sexton paid no further attention to him, but crawled off down the path for another body, or for anything else that needed to be scavenged.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
