Sacrist

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sacristan.

    "At some unknown point during the twelfth century the problem of waking up at night at the right time to ring the bell was solved, because, in a new version of the Rule for Cistercian monks, it says that the sacrist 'roused by the sound of the clock shall ring the church bell'."

  2. 2
    A person retained in a cathedral to copy out music for the choir and take care of the books.

Example

More examples

"At some unknown point during the twelfth century the problem of waking up at night at the right time to ring the bell was solved, because, in a new version of the Rule for Cistercian monks, it says that the sacrist 'roused by the sound of the clock shall ring the church bell'."

Etymology

From Late Latin sacrista.

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