Definition of "deaconry" []

• The office or position of a deacon. (noun)
• Deacons considered as a group. (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.

• "Jesus did not make a sacrament either of marriage or of deaconry; and, with us, marriage and deaconry are sacraments."
• "That same year Gerhardt accepted the deaconry at the Nicolaikirche in"
• "As the townsmen became the electors of the minister, and when the new latitude in membership had been accepted by the churches, there soon appeared a growing slackness of discipline and also an increase of authority in the hands of the ministers and their subordinate deaconry."