ostiary

plural ostiaries

1. archaicThe mouth of a river; an estuary.

   the river of Nilus hath seven ostiaries, that is, by seven channels disburdened itself into the sea

   1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC

2. One who keeps the door, especially the door of a church; a porter.

   So arrayed I stepped at last from my door and was saluted as before by my monstrous ostiaries.

   1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXV, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 149

   1 more example

   They had other inferiour degrees of the Clergy, vvhich becauſe they are meerly ſubſervient, and not conſiderable in Church-government, I ſhall onely touch upon them. […] Laſtly, Oſtiaries; vvhich uſed to ring the bells, and open and ſhut the Church-doores.

   1647, Nath[aniel] Bacon, “Of Other Inferiour Church-officers amongst the Saxons”, in An Historicall Discourse of the Uniformity of the Government of England. The First Part. From the First Times till the Reign of Edward the Third, London: […] Mathew Walbancke […], →OCLC, page 28

   Synonyms: ostiarius