sacristy

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sacristie,^[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman sacrestie, also sacristie,^[2][4][5] and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin sacristia,^[2][4][6] from sacrista (“sacristan”) and the suffix -ia,^[7][6] ultimately from Latin sacer (“sacred”).^[5][8][9] The OED, which first records the word in 1656, gives French sacristie as the immediate source,^[10][11] and Barnhart thinks the 1656 word was probably reborrowed directly from Medieval Latin.^[4] The Shorter Oxford also allows Italian sacrestia.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

A room in a church where sacred objects are kept: about 1450, in Capgrave, Ther sei we in þe sacristie a fayr uernycle.^[2][4] The OED's first record is Blount's Glossographia of 1656.^[10][4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its meaning of a repository for a church's sacred vessels, vestments and valuables.^[2][10][7] Before it, Middle English had sacrarie, recorded from the late 14th century, and the longer word was vulgarly contracted to sextry.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as an apartment for a church's consecrated vessels, quoting Dryden, and Addison's use of it for a store of altars, idols and sacrificing instruments.^[11] Modern dictionaries add that the room is where a priest gets ready for a service,^[13][14] and Dictionary.com allows a separate building connected with a church.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1450 – sacristie, the repository for a church's sacred objects.^[2][4]
• 1656 – the spelling sacristy.^[4][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A room in or attached to a church where the sacred vessels and vestments are kept and where the priest prepares for a service; a vestry: The altar servers waited in the sacristy for the bishop.^{[7][13][3][12]}

Related words

• sacrament
• sacristan
• sexton
• sacrist
• sacred

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press