sexton

sex·ton

S s

Definitions of sexton word

noun sexton Anne (Harvey) 1928–74, U.S. poet. 1
noun sexton church official 1
noun sexton a person employed to act as caretaker of a church and its contents and graveyard, and often also as bell-ringer, gravedigger, etc 0
noun sexton a church officer or employee in charge of the maintenance of church property: duties may include ringing the church bells and digging graves in the churchyard 0

before 1275

One of the 13% oldest English words

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

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

A common word. It’s meaning is known to most children of preschool age. About 82% of English native speakers know the meaning and use the word.

Most Europeans know this English word. The frequency of it’s usage is somewhere between "mom" and "screwdriver".

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer