different between beadle vs sexton

English

Alternative forms

• bedel, bedell (obsolete)
• bedral, bethral, betherel (Scotland)

Etymology

From Middle English bedel, bidel, from Old English bydel (“warrant officer, apparitor”), from Proto-Germanic *budilaz (“herald”), equivalent to bid +? -le. Cognate with Dutch beul, German Büttel. More at bid.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): [?bi?d??]
• Rhymes: -i?d?l

Noun

beadle (plural beadles)

1. a parish constable, a uniformed minor (lay) official, who ushers and keeps order
2. (Scotland, ecclesiastic) an attendant to the minister
3. a warrant officer

Quotations

• 1789, William Blake, "Holy Thursday"

Twas on a holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two in red and blue and green:

Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames waters flow.

• 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ch 11:

  The beadle ... generally understood in the neighbourhood to be a ridiculous institution ... The policeman considers him an imbecile civilian, a remnant of the barbarous watchmen times, but gives him admission as something that must be borne with until government shall abolish him.

• 1929, Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, paperback edition, page 8

  His face expressed horror and indignation. Instinct rather than reason came to my help; he was a Beadle; I was a woman.

Derived terms

• beadledom
• beadleism
• beadlery
• beadleship

Translations

Anagrams

• Bedale, bealed, bedeal, belead

English

Etymology

From Old French segrestien, from Medieval Latin sacristanus, based on Latin sacer (“sacred”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?k.st?n/
• Hyphenation: sex?ton

Noun

sexton (plural sextons)

1. A church official who looks after a church building and its graveyard and may act as a gravedigger and bell-ringer.
2. A sexton beetle.

Synonyms

• sacristan

Translations

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish sæxtan, siæxt?n, from Old Norse sextán, from Proto-Germanic *sehstehun.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?s?ks?t?n/

Numeral

sexton

1. sixteen

Related terms

• sextonde
• sextondel