churchwarden
Americannoun
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Anglican Church. a lay officer who looks after the secular affairs of the church, and who, in England, is the legal representative of the parish.
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Episcopal Church. a lay church officer who, with other members of the vestry, is in charge of the temporal management of the parish.
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a long-stemmed clay pipe for smoking.
noun
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Church of England Episcopal Church one of two assistants of a parish priest who administer the secular affairs of the church
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a long-stemmed tobacco pipe made of clay
Etymology
Origin of churchwarden
1400–50; late Middle English chirche wardeyn
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.
"Some of the old guard were worried about theft, but we were determined to be open and available to the whole community," says churchwarden Robert Allen.
From BBC • Oct. 10, 2019
Here is a Sunday school superintendent, churchwarden and self-appointed president of a piety league, who religiously highlights the faults in others while constantly trying to pursue his own advancement through “good deeds”.
From The Guardian • Jan. 7, 2017
But we took advantage of 21st-century technology and called churchwarden Chris Moss, who came to show us around.
From Washington Post • Nov. 6, 2015
Keens’s custom holds that when a member dies, friends and family ceremoniously break the stem of his or her churchwarden so that it can never be smoked again.
From New York Times • Mar. 4, 2012
He died prosperous, and, above all, a churchwarden.
From Curiosities of Impecuniosity by Somerville, H. G.
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.
