Custodian

//kəˈstoʊdiən// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person entrusted with the custody or care of something or someone; a caretaker or keeper.

    "After their parents' death, their aunt became the children's custodian."

  2. 2
    one having charge of buildings or grounds or animals wordnet
  3. 3
    An administrator.
  4. 4
    A gaolkeeper.
  5. 5
    A protector or guard.
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  1. 6
    A janitor; a cleaner. Canada, US

Synonyms

All synonyms
air wardenattendantattorneybailiffbullbutler

Example

More examples

"The school custodian cleans the gym in the evening."

Etymology

From a shortening of Latin custōdiānātus, from Latin custōdia (“a keeping, watch, guard, prison”), from custōs (“a keeper, watchman, guard”). By surface analysis, custody + -ian.

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