Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Roman Catholic Church One who is ordained in the lowest of the former minor orders.
- n. A church doorkeeper.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In the early church and in the Roman Catholic Church, the doorkeeper of a church. The office of ostiary is the lowest of the minor orders in the Western Church. It is as old as the third century in the Western Church, and as the fourth century in the Eastern Church. In the primitive church the duties of this office seem to have been discharged by deacons.
- n. The porter of a monastery.
- n. A mouth of a river.
Wiktionary
- n. The mouth of a river; an estuary.
- n. One who keeps the door, especially the door of a church; a porter.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. rare The mouth of a river; an estuary.
- n. One who keeps the door, especially the door of a church; a porter.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the lowest of the minor Holy Orders in the unreformed Western Church but now suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church
- n. someone who guards an entrance
Etymologies
- Latin ostium door, entrance. See usher. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English hostiary, from Latin ōstiārius, doorkeeper, from ōstium, door, from ōs, mouth; see ōs- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In Western Europe the office of the ostiary was the lowest grade of the minor clergy.”
“In the Roman period all houses of the better class had an ostiarius, or ostiary, whose duties were considered very inferior.”
“Later, however, in the Latin Church the office of ostiary universally remained only one of the degrees of ordination and the actual work of the ostiary was transferred to the laity,”
“According to the statement, of the "Liber Pontificalis" (ed. Duchesne, I, 155) an ostiary named Romanus suffered martyrdom in 258 at the same time as”
“Sicily Pope Gelasius says that for admission into the clergy it was necessary that the candidate could read (must, therefore, have a certain amount of education), for without this prerequisite an applicant could, at the most, only fill the office of an ostiary”
“All the orders except the minor order of ostiary are enumerated by the early African writers.”
“This is shown by the epitaph of one Ursatius, an ostiary of Trier (Corpus inscr. latin.,”
“An ostiary of the church of Salona is also mentioned in an epitaph (Corpus inscr.”
“In the purely legendary Acts of St. Lawrence, the ostiary Romanus is transformed into a soldier, and an account in accordance with this statement was inserted in the historical martyrologies and in the present Roman Martyrology, which latter places his feast on 9 August (cf. Duchfourcq, "Les Gesta”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ostiary’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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phrontistery - o
from phrontistery.info
oakum, oakus, oast, obambulate, obdormition, obduracy, obedible, obedientiary, obeism, obeliscolychny, obelize, obelus and 504 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Keepers
I'm fond of many words, but these are definitely keepers.
beekeeper, zookeeper, goalkeeper, netkeeper, innkeeper, housekeeper, storekeeper, gamekeeper, wicketkeeper, lighthouse keeper, gatekeeper, bookkeeper and 64 more...
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Joycean Vocab
You ain't read no English til you read Joyce.
rasher, cygnet, usquebaugh, ephebe, entelechy, kish, caul, vicereine, atelier, daguerreotype, communard, connubial and 99 more...
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euphonic logorrhea
cephalopodous, plumulaceous, oblomovism, etiolation, pavonine, somnolent, logorrhea, fulguration, gossamer, prestidigitation, daffodil, inchoate and 174 more...
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Defunct professions
Economists like to cite "buggy whip maker" as an example of a profession whose career prospects were dimmed, and ultimately quenched, by the inexorable march of technological progress. This is a li...
buggy whip maker, guillemot egg col..., bog iron hunter, nettle string maker, fuller, purple maker, tanner, gut girl, reddleman, wont catcher, navvy, ratcatcher and 239 more...
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Warp, Woof, Wimble
My favorite words.
prurient, locution, mondegreen, vaunted, lugubrious, larine, warp, woof, wimble, ineffable, pyknic, sodden and 114 more...
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jimmynewland's Words
steganography, incunabulum, dog days, geekhood, risorgimento, ab initio, slugabed, humanism, diddly-squat, doch-an-dorris, snickersnee, rictus and 198 more...
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BetaRish's Words
brigand, teetotum, internship, thribble, neologism, readies, resfest, tohubohu, tanzen, regression, nutlet, bandolier and 111 more...
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Church of England
words related to the Anglican faith.
transept, nave, sanctuary, sacristy, cassock, chasuble, ciborium, chalice, vestments, acolyte, alb, liturgy and 22 more...
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