VESTRY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does vestry mean? 

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

1. in the Protestant Episcopal Church: a committee elected by the congregation to work with the churchwardens in managing the temporal affairs of the church

2. a room in a church where sacred vessels and vestments are kept or meetings are held

  Familiarity information: VESTRY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VESTRY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In the Protestant Episcopal Church: a committee elected by the congregation to work with the churchwardens in managing the temporal affairs of the church

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

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

commission; committee (a special group delegated to consider some matter)

Meronyms (members of "vestry"):

vestryman (a man who is a member of a church vestry)

vestrywoman (a woman who is a member of a church vestry)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A room in a church where sacred vessels and vestments are kept or meetings are held

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

sacristy; vestry

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

room (an area within a building enclosed by walls and floor and ceiling)

Holonyms ("vestry" is a part of...):

church; church building (a place for public (especially Christian) worship)

 Context examples 

She dropped her bouquet as we went towards the vestry.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Of our kneeling down together, side by side; of Dora's trembling less and less, but always clasping Agnes by the hand; of the service being got through, quietly and gravely; of our all looking at each other in an April state of smiles and tears, when it is over; of my young wife being hysterical in the vestry, and crying for her poor papa, her dear papa.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

We had an adjourned cause in the Consistory that day—about excommunicating a baker who had been objecting in a vestry to a paving-rate—and as the evidence was just twice the length of Robinson Crusoe, according to a calculation I made, it was rather late in the day before we finished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)