Churchward

adv, name, noun

adv, name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Obsolete form of churchwarden. alt-of, obsolete
Adverb
  1. 1
    Towards a church. not-comparable
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    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 Waterloo to Padstow, and between Swindon and Eastleigh there was a great gulf fixed."

Example

More examples

"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 Waterloo to Padstow, and between Swindon and Eastleigh there was a great gulf fixed."

Etymology

Etymology 1

A contraction of churchwarden, in turn from Old English cyrce + weard a "churchwarden" or "sacristan".

Etymology 2

From Middle English cherche ward, chercheward, chircheward, churchewarde, chyrche-ward, chyrcheward, kirkeward, kurk-ward, kurkward, kyrkward; equivalent to church + -ward.

Etymology 3

An occupational family name, a contraction of churchwarden, in turn from Old English cyrce weard a "churchwarden" or "sacristan".

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.