Meaning & use
sexton
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Meaning
nouncountableold-fashionedreligion
A church worker who looks after the building and its grounds, and in the past also rang the bell and dug graves.
Grammar: A countable job title: the sexton, two sextons.
Patterns
- the sexton of a church
The sexton unlocked the church doors before the early service.
In the old village, the sexton rang the bell whenever someone died.
The parish thanked its sexton, who had tended the churchyard for forty years.
Word forms
| plural | sextons |
|---|
Common combinations
- the parish sexton
- The parish sexton kept the keys to the tower.
- church sexton
- The church sexton mowed the grass between the gravestones.
- the sexton's house
- The sexton's house stood beside the churchyard gate.
- sexton and gravedigger
- He worked as both sexton and gravedigger in the small town.
Synonyms and how they differ
- caretaker
- Caretaker is a general word for anyone who looks after a building, while sexton belongs specifically to a church.
- verger
- A verger assists in the church services and cares for the interior, whereas a sexton traditionally also looked after the grounds and graves.
- sacristan
- A sacristan looks after the sacred vessels and vestments, so the role is narrower and more ceremonial than a sexton's.
Word family
Commonly confused: sexton or sextant?
sexton vs sextant
A sextant is an instrument for measuring angles, used in navigation. It has nothing to do with churches.
Practice
In the old novel, the ___ rang the church bell and then went to dig a grave in the churchyard.
Choose one answer.
A sexton looks after a church and its graveyard. A sextant is a navigation instrument, a tempting wrong choice because it looks similar.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “sexton”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.