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Deacon   /dˈikən/   Listen
noun
Deacon  n.  
1.
(Eccl.) An officer in Christian churches appointed to perform certain subordinate duties varying in different communions. In the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, a person admitted to the lowest order in the ministry, subordinate to the bishops and priests. In Presbyterian churches, he is subordinate to the minister and elders, and has charge of certain duties connected with the communion service and the care of the poor. In Congregational churches, he is subordinate to the pastor, and has duties as in the Presbyterian church.
2.
The chairman of an incorporated company. (Scot.)



verb
Deacon  v. t.  
1.
To read aloud each line of (a psalm or hymn) before singing it, usually with off. (Colloq. New. Eng.) See Line, v. t. Note: The expression is derived from a former custom in the Congregational churches of New England. It was part of the office of a deacon to read aloud the psalm given out, one line at a time, the congregation singing each line as soon as read; called, also, lining out the psalm.
2.
With humorous reference to hypocritical posing: To pack (fruit or vegetables) with the finest specimens on top; to alter slyly the boundaries of (land); to adulterate or doctor (an article to be sold), etc. (Colloq., U. S.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Deacon" Quotes from Famous Books



... century, Columban knows Horace, the Venerable Bede cites him four times, and Alcuin is called a Flaccus. The York catalogue of Alcuin shows the presence of most of the classic authors. Paul the Deacon, who wrote a poem in the Sapphics he learned from Horace, is declared, he says, to be like Homer, Flaccus, and Virgil, but ungratefully and ungraciously adds, "men like that I'll compare with dogs." In Spain, Saint Isidore of Seville knew Horace in the seventh century, though the Rule of Isidore, ...
— Horace and His Influence • Grant Showerman

... a child to Moloch, They count a vile abomination, But not to slaughter a whole nation. 1200 Presbytery does but translate The Papacy to a free state; A commonwealth of Popery, Where ev'ry village is a See As well as Rome, and must maintain 1205 A Tithe-pig Metropolitan; Where ev'ry Presbyter and Deacon Commands the keys for cheese and bacon; And ev'ry hamlet's governed By's Holiness, the Church's Head; 1210 More haughty and severe in's place, Than GREGORY or BONIFACE. Such Church must (surely) be a monster ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... on hand, on her own showing. And yet this young baggage, whose own father would not trust her to choose a husband, whose brains are addled by her own love affairs, and who had no more business in court than the deacon would have in Chancellor Whiting's suit in the Lowber claim, not only came into court under a fraudulent disguise, argued the case under false pretences, but actually took the words from the judge's own mouth, and decided her case on her own ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... biographers that he was induced to abandon the pursuit of the law, to which he was educated, and to take holy orders, by Bishop Humphreys, who had recognised in his translation of the Holy Living marked ability and piety, and that he was ordained deacon and priest the same day by the Bishop, at Bangor, in 1701, and presented on the following day to the living of Llanfair-juxta-Harlech ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne

... dear deacon, who do you vote for?" inquired a stanch teetotaller, as an old gentleman approached. The person addressed, after a little hesitation, during which a few nervous twinges of the mouth betrayed his nervousness ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams


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