Word.ws English Dictionary

ostiary

/ˈɒsti.əɹi/

ostiary noun: the mouth of a river; an estuary.

Noun

ostiary (plural ostiaries)

  1. (archaic) The mouth of a river; an estuary.
    • the river of Nilus hath seven ostiaries, that is, by seven channels disburdened itself into the sea1650, 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.
    • 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...
    • 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
    Synonyms:
    ostiarius

ostiary meaning in Tamil

ostiary in Tamil

துளைக்குறிய புகுவழி, துளையின்

Synonyms of ostiary

Forms of ostiary

pluralostiaries

Origin of ostiary

Borrowed from Latin ostiārius, from ostium (“door, entrance”). See usher, which may be a doublet.

Words formed from ostiary

Questions about ostiary

What does ostiary mean?
Ostiary means the mouth of a river; an estuary.
What is ostiary in Tamil?
Ostiary in Tamil is துளைக்குறிய புகுவழி, துளையின். See Ostiary meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is ostiary?
Ostiary is a noun.
How do you pronounce ostiary?
Ostiary is pronounced /ˈɒsti.əɹi/.
What is the plural of ostiary?
The plural of ostiary is ostiaries.

Words near ostiary in the dictionary

  1. ostiariate
  2. ostiariates
  3. ostiaries
  4. ostiarii
  5. ostiarius
  6. ostiary
  7. Ostic
  8. ostikan
  9. ostikanate
  10. ostikanates
  11. ostikans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ostiary (page history and authors); ostiary (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “ostiary.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ostiary. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.