Word.ws English Dictionary

clerk

UK/klɑːk//klɝk/

clerk noun: one who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.

Noun

clerk (plural clerks)

  1. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.
    • As office boy I made such a mark
      That they gave me the post of a junior clerk.1879, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, “When I Was a Lad”, in H.M.S. Pinafore; […], San Francisco: Bacon & Company, […], →OCLC, page 10
    • Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC
    1. A salesclerk; a person who serves customers in a store or market.
    2. A law clerk.
    3. An employee at a hotel who deals with guests.
    4. The chief legal advisor of a legislature or legislative chamber, who is usually also responsible for keeping minutes of sittings.
  2. (Quakerism) A facilitator of a Quaker meeting for business affairs.
  3. (archaic) In the Church of England, the layman that assists in the church service, especially in reading the responses (also called parish clerk and Bible clerk).
    • God save the King! Will no man say, amen? / Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to...
  4. (dated) A cleric or clergyman (the legal title for clergy of the Church of England is "Clerk in Holy Orders", still used in legal documents and cherished by some of their number).
  5. (obsolete) A scholar.
    • 13th century, Traditional carol,
      And all was for an appel, an appel that he toke/As clerkès finden written in their boke.

Verb

clerk (third-person singular simple present clerks, present participle clerking, simple past and past participle clerked)

  1. To act as a clerk, to perform the duties or functions of a clerk.
    • The law school graduate clerked for the supreme court judge for the summer.
    • He turned to a more attentive audience, and found it in the young fellow they called The Iceman, because he clerked in the swell jewelry store around the corner, and was always there with the finger advertisement for his boss’s diamondware.1908 July 4, “Iceman’s Boss Was Easy. How Needles Put the Jeweler Next to a Winner and an Accomodating^([sic]) Bookie. [New York Press.]”, in The Cincinnati Enquirer, volume LXV, number 186, page 13...
  2. To assemble information about a patient during their initial assessment by actions such as a taking a detailed medical history and performing a physical examination.
    • The best preparation for the long case is to clerk patients on the wards and in outpatients within a strict 60 minutes. This would include deciding on a policy of management.1987, R.A. Blackwood, T.M.E. Davis, A Guide to the MRCP Part II Examination, Blackwell Scientific Publications, →ISBN, page 51
    • You should present a case you have clerked to a doctor (registrar or consultant) and discuss your choice of investigations and management.2008, Nathalie Hurley, James Dawson, Stephan Sanders, Simon Eccles, Oxford Handbook for the Foundation Programme, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 18

Proper noun capitalized: Clerk

Clerk (plural Clerks)

  1. A surname.

clerk meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

clerk in Hindi

one working with records etc.
क्लर्क klark, बाबू bābū, मुंशी muñśī, मुहर्रिर muharrir

clerk in Tamil

எழுத்தர்

clerk in Marathi

लिपिक, कारकून, कारकुनाला

clerk in Urdu

one working with records etc.
بابُو bābū, مُحَرِّر muharrir, مُنْشی munśī, کِلَرْک kilark, کاتِب kātib
More languagesFewer languages
clerk in Bengali
বাবু babu
clerk in Malayalam
ക്ലർക്ക്
clerk in Kannada
ಬರೆಗ, ಗುಮಾಸ್ತ, ಕಾರಕೂನ, ಮುನಶಿ
clerk in Punjabi
ਕਲਰਕ
clerk in Gujarati
કારકુન kārkun, મહેતો maheto, ગુમાસ્તો gumāsto
clerk in Odia
କରଣ karaṇa
clerk in Sanskrit
लेखक lekhaka
clerk in Nepali
बाबु bābu
clerk in Pashto
میرزا mírzâ
clerk in Arabic
مُوَظَّف muwaẓẓaf, مُوَظَّفَة muwaẓẓafa
clerk in Malay
kerani
clerk in Indonesian
kerani, klerek, panitera
clerk in Thai
เสมียน sà-mǐian, พนักงาน pá-nák-ngaan
clerk in Vietnamese
nhân viên văn phòng, nhân viên văn thư, người thư kí
clerk in Myanmar
စာရေး care:

Examples of clerk in a sentence

  • […] for three years he had worked in the stinking labyrinth of the Mandalay bazaars, clerking for the rice merchants and sometimes stealing.1934, George Orwell, chapter 1, in Burmese Days:
  • The best way to get involved is to clerk new patients on the ward prior to the rounds and then present your clerkings to the person leading the round.2011, David Randall, Introduction to Clinical Medicine: A Clerking Companion, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page xi:

All 40 example sentences with clerk

Synonyms of clerk

Forms of clerk

Noun
pluralclerks
alternative form (obsolete)clark
Verb
third-person singular presentclerks
present participleclerking
past participleclerked
pastclerked
Proper noun
pluralClerks

Plural of clerk: clerks

Origin of clerk

From Middle English clerc, from Old English clerc, from Late Latin clēricus (“priest, clergyman, cleric”, also generally “learned man, clerk”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”, adj. in church jargon), from κλῆρος (klêros, “lot, inheritance”, originally “shard used in casting lots”). Doublet of cleric. Compare typologically Russian дьяк (dʹjak) (akin to дья́кон (dʹjákon)).

Derived from the noun clerk

Words formed from clerk

Phrases with clerk

Words that rhyme with clerk

35 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about clerk

What does clerk mean?
Clerk means one who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.
What is clerk in Hindi?
Clerk in Hindi is क्लर्क (klark), बाबू (bābū), मुंशी (muñśī). See Clerk meaning in Hindi.
How do you use clerk in a sentence?
[…] for three years he had worked in the stinking labyrinth of the Mandalay bazaars, clerking for the rice merchants and sometimes stealing.
What part of speech is clerk?
Clerk can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce clerk?
Clerk is pronounced /klɑːk/ (UK).
What is the plural of clerk?
The plural of clerk is clerks.

Words near clerk in the dictionary

  1. clerihews
  2. clerisies
  3. clerisy
  4. clerite
  5. Clerith
  6. clerk
  7. Clerk of the Closet
  8. clerk of the course
  9. clerk of the pells
  10. clerk of the pipe
  11. clerk of the works

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: clerk (page history and authors); Clerk (page history and authors); clerk (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clerk (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); বাবু (Bengali) (page history and authors); clerk (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clerk (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); clerk (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); કારકુન (Gujarati) (page history and authors); କରଣ (Odia) (page history and authors); लेखक (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); बाबु (Nepali) (page history and authors); میرزا (Pashto) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-clerk.ogg.

Cite this entry: “clerk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clerk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.