Definition of "archdeacon" []

• A church official, as in the Anglican Church, who is in charge of temporal and other affairs in a diocese, with powers delegated from the bishop. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This remarkable transformation, no doubt in some degree inevitable, was actually brought about chiefly through the instrumentality of a single man, a certain English archdeacon of Welsh descent, Geoffrey of Monmouth."
• "Then he called his archdeacon and demanded him if he heard anything, and he said: Nay."
• "A poor gentleman, a certain archdeacon, arrived here a few days ago, to fill the English chaplaincy at this place for five weeks, and I really am concerned for the worthy gentleman, who yesterday read the prayers admirably, and preached an excellent sermon to his wife and two children, myself and my two servants – a large congregation, which will be half as large next Sunday, when I shall not be here."