churchwarden

plural churchwardens

1. UKA lay officer of the Church of England who handles the secular affairs of the parish.

   One important office that has survived for over 800 years is that of the churchwarden, established in the middle of the 12th century.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 187

   2 more examples

   At first, not knowing any better, I used sometimes to copy a nude on the pavement. The first I did was outside St Martin's-in-the-Fields church. A fellow in black—I suppose he was a churchwarden or something—came out in a tearing rage.

   1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXI, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC

   But what villager could have foreseen that their neighbor was to be commissioner for the government of Massachusetts, church elder, town selectman, judge of small causes, and town deputy to the Massachusetts legislature? The people of Weyhill [in Hampshire, England], who had seen Peter Noyes serve as juryman in their manorial court and churchwarden of their church on the hill, could have predicted that he would do well as land surveyor, road building director, grantor of timber, and fence viewer. They would have been amazed, however, and so would Noyes himself, if someone had told him, in 1638, that during the next twenty years he was to attend one hundred and twenty-nine separate official meetings in his town, to say nothing of the informal church gatherings, church services, and sessions of the Massachusetts legislature.

   1963, Sumner Chilton Powell, “Chapter I: The Web of Open-field Life”, in Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, Wesleyan University Press

2. USA similar functionary of the Episcopal church.
3. UKabbreviationellipsisslangEllipsis of churchwarden pipe.

   In one part of Cockaigne an amalgamation of these two last has lately taken place; and the pleasure experienced by the parishioners of Walbrook is unbounded when smoking an alderman and churchwarden.

   1843, John William Carleton, The Sporting Review, volume 10, page 419

   2 more examples

   [T]here was a small wooden table placed in front of the smouldering fire, with decanters, a jar of tobacco, and two long churchwardens. The second churchwarden was supposed to be placed there for the service of Mr. Fred; but as a matter of fact that young gentleman did not find much gaiety in sitting and listening to grumblings over his own conduct and gloomy prophecies as to the future of the agricultural interests of the country; so that the old man generally sat there alone, nor had he ever been known to ask any one to keep him company.

   1887, William Black, “A Honeymoon Visit”, in Sabina Zembra […], volume II, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 9

   He greeted William with cordiality. "Ah, Boot, how are you? Don't think I've had the pleasure before. Know your work well of course. Sit down. Have a cigarette or"—had he made a floater?—"or do you prefer your churchwarden?"

   1938 May, Evelyn Waugh, chapter 2, in Scoop: A Novel about Journalists, uniform edition, London: Chapman & Hall, published 1948 (1951 printing), →OCLC, book I (The Stitch Service), section 3, page 26