SEXTON

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

• SEXTON (noun)
  The noun SEXTON has 2 senses:

1. United States poet (1928-1974)

2. an officer of the church who is in charge of sacred objects

  Familiarity information: SEXTON used as a noun is rare.

• SEXTON (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

United States poet (1928-1974)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

Anne Sexton; Sexton

Instance hypernyms:

poet (a writer of poems (the term is usually reserved for writers of good poetry))

Sense 2

Meaning:

An officer of the church who is in charge of sacred objects

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

sacristan; sexton

Hypernyms ("sexton" is a kind of...):

caretaker (a custodian who is hired to take care of something (property or a person))

church officer (a church official)

 Context examples 

The sexton’s wife waited a long time for her husband, but he did not come back.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He was a sexton.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But they had scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And yet I can laugh at her very grave—laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say 'Thud! thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“Didn't I know it! But how little you think of the rightful umbleness of a person in my station, Master Copperfield! Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not much else that I know of, from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor-medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man, that they were determined to bring him in. “Be umble, Uriah,” says father to me, “and you'll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. Be umble,” says father, “and you'll do!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The sexton therefore took him into his house, and he had to ring the church bell.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The sexton thought: “He can’t mean to be as bad as his words,” uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)