ostiary
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin ostiārius, from ostium (“door, entrance”). See usher, which may be a doublet.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈɒsti.əɹi/, /ˈɒst͡ʃəɹi/
Noun
ostiary (plural ostiaries)
- The mouth of a river; an estuary.
- 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], OCLC 152706203:
- the river of Nilus hath seven ostiaries, that is, by seven channels disburdened itself into the sea
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- One who keeps the door, especially the door of a church; a porter.
- Synonym: ostiarius
- 1647, Nathaniel Bacon, An historicall discourse of the uniformity of the government of England:
- Ostiaries; which used to ring the bells, and open and shut the Church-doors.
- 1987, Gene Wolfe, The Urth of the New Sun:
- So arrayed I stepped at last from my door and was saluted as before by my monstrous ostiaries.
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for ostiary in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)