churchwarden

Also found in: Thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

church·war·den

(chûrch′wôr′dn)

A lay officer in an Anglican church, chosen annually by the parish priest or the congregation to handle secular and legal affairs.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

churchwarden

(ˌtʃɜːtʃˈwɔːdən)

1. (Ecclesiastical Terms) Church of England Episcopal Church one of two assistants of a parish priest who administer the secular affairs of the church

2. (Recreational Drugs) a long-stemmed tobacco pipe made of clay

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

church•ward•en

(ˈtʃɜrtʃˌwɔr dn)

n.

1. a lay officer in the Anglican or Episcopal Church with certain secular responsibilities.

2. a long-stemmed clay pipe for smoking.

[1400–50]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

churchwarden - an officer in the Episcopal church who helps a parish priest with secular matters

church officer - a church official

Translations

fabbriciere

churchwarden

[ˈtʃɜːtʃˈwɔːdn] N → capillero m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

References in classic literature ?

Carey often stopped at the bank to deliver a message to Josiah Graves, the manager, who was choir-master, treasurer, and churchwarden. He was a tall, thin man with a sallow face and a long nose; his hair was very white, and to Philip he seemed extremely old.

He had firm views upon the respect which was due to the cloth, and it was ridiculous for a churchwarden to take the chair at a meeting when the Vicar was there.

View in context

If I might be so bold to give my advice, I would have it put in a basket, and sent out and laid at the churchwarden's door.

View in context

But, after all analysis, I incline to think that what gave me my first old-fashioned impression was simply a set of tall, old-fashioned wine-glasses, one or two lemons and two churchwarden pipes.

Speaking with restraint and with the accent of a highly educated gentleman, and puffing at intervals at his long churchwarden pipe, he proceeded to tell me some of the most horrible stories I have ever heard in my life: how one of the Eyres in the former ages had hanged his own father; and another had his wife scourged at the cart tail through the village; and another had set fire to a church full of children, and so on.

View in context

Chaloner had even selected him as clergyman's churchwarden, for he was a very handy man, and much more of Mr.

View in context

He went courting the daughter of an old sea-captain who was a churchwarden of his parish and lived in an old badly preserved Georgian house with a garden: one of these houses standing in a reduced bit of "grounds" that you discover in a labyrinth of the most sordid streets, exactly alike and composed of six-roomed hutches.

View in context

Why, you might as well say we ought to pull down Westminster Abbey, and put up a go-to-meeting shop with churchwarden windows; or never read Shakespeare, but only Sheridan Knowles.

View in context

Churchwarden Soward held the plate, and bowed to me.

View in context

Mark the successful man, the merchant prince with argosies on every sea, the employer of thousands of hands, the munificent contributor to public charities, the churchwarden, the member of parliament, and the generous patron of his relatives his self-approbation struggling with the instinctive sense of baseness in the money-hunter, the ignorant and greedy filcher of the labor of others, the seller of his own mind and manhood for luxuries and delicacies that he was too lowlived to enjoy, and for the society of people who made him feel his inferiority at every turn."

View in context

"Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.He really is engaged from morning to night.There is no end of people's coming to him, on some pretence or other.The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always wanting his opinion.

View in context

It arose out of a scuffle between two churchwardens, one of whom was alleged to have pushed the other against a pump; the handle of which pump projecting into a school-house, which school-house was under a gable of the church-roof, made the push an ecclesiastical offence.