sexton

¹

[sek-stuhn]

noun

1. 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.

2. 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.

Sexton

²

[sek-stuhn]

noun

1. Anne (Harvey), 1928–74, U.S. poet.

sexton

/ ˈsɛkstən /

noun

1. a person employed to act as caretaker of a church and its contents and graveyard, and often also as bell-ringer, gravedigger, etc

2. another name for the burying beetle

Other Word Forms

• sextonship noun
• undersexton noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of sexton¹

1275–1325; Middle English sexteyn, sekesteyn, syncopated variant of segerstane, secristeyn < Anglo-French segerstaine sacristan

Word History and Origins

Origin of sexton¹

C14: from Old French secrestein, from Medieval Latin sacristānus _sacristan

Example Sentences

He then moved to Portland, Oregon, where he worked as a maintenance worker or sexton at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

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The gunmen sprayed bullets at a priest, nuns, and sextons, wounding five of them, said the two witnesses, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

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The pair grew up in Seminary, a historically Black community near the Virginia Theological Seminary, where their grandfather worked as a sexton.

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Junior Roop, the sexton of a cemetery near the spill site, said people could smell the oil in town.

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When she later fell pregnant, Van Gogh was accused by the village sexton of being responsible.

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