undertaker

What it means

1. A funeral director; someone whose business is to manage funerals, burials and cremations.

   Synonyms: mortician, cold cook

2. historicalA person receiving land in Ireland during the Elizabethan era, so named because they gave an undertaking to abide by several conditions regarding marriage, to be loyal to the crown, and to use English as their spoken language.

   In 1588, Edmund Spenser became an undertaker in the first Elizabethan plantation, receiving the forfeited Irish estate of Kilcolman Castle.

3. historicalA contractor for the royal revenue in England, one of those who undertook to manage the House of Commons for the king in the Addled Parliament of 1614.

In a sentence

In 1588, Edmund Spenser became an undertaker in the first Elizabethan plantation, receiving the forfeited Irish estate of Kilcolman Castle.

Where it comes from

From undertake (verb) + -er.