churchward
churchward is the obsolete form of churchwarden.
Meaning of churchwarden
Noun
churchwarden (plural churchwardens)
- A lay officer of the Church of England who handles the secular affairs of the parish.
- 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
- A similar functionary of the Episcopal church.
Adverb
churchward (not comparable)
- Towards a church.
Proper noun capitalized: Churchward
Churchward
- A surname originating as an occupation.
- In the present writer's opinion there was no greater and more successful locomotive engineer in the country, during the first quarter-century, than George Jackson Churchward of the Great Western Railway. This statement is made without prejudice, for I was brought up on the other line extending from...1957 July, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Six Decades of Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 471
Forms of churchward
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | churchwards |
| Adverb | |
| alternative form | churchwards |
Origin of churchward
A contraction of churchwarden, in turn from Old English cyrce + weard a "churchwarden" or "sacristan".
From Middle English cherche ward, chercheward, chircheward, churchewarde, chyrche-ward, chyrcheward, kirkeward, kurk-ward, kurkward, kyrkward; equivalent to church + -ward.
An occupational family name, a contraction of churchwarden, in turn from Old English cyrce weard a "churchwarden" or "sacristan".
Questions about churchward
- What does churchward mean?
- Churchward means towards a church.
- What is churchward the obsolete form of?
- Churchward is the obsolete form of churchwarden.
- What part of speech is churchward?
- Churchward can be an adverb or a proper noun.
Words near churchward in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: churchward (page history and authors); Churchward (page history and authors); churchwarden (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “churchward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/churchward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.