Word of the Day:
vicar
What It Means
In the Church of England, the priest of a parish, receiving a salary or stipend but not tithes.
In the Roman Catholic and some other churches, a cleric acting as local representative of a higher ranking member of the clergy.
A person acting on behalf of, or representing, another person.
Near-synonyms: proxy, representative, agent
Vicar in Context
“Hester Earle and Violet Wayne were moving about the aisle with bundles of wheat-ears and streamers of ivy, for the harvest thanksgiving was shortly to be celebrated, while the vicar stood waiting for their directions on the chancel steps with a great handful of crimson gladioli.”
Did You Know?
From Middle English vicar, viker, vikyr, vicaire, vicare, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman vikare, vicare, vikaire, vikere and Old French vicaire (“deputy, second in command”), from Latin vicārius (“vicarious, substitute”). Doublet of vicarious. Displaced native Old English ġespelia.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: vicar (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “vicar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/vicar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
