Definition of "vestry" []

• A room in or attached to a church where the clergy put on their vestments and where these robes and other sacred objects are stored; a sacristy. (noun)
• A room in a church used for meetings and classes. (noun)
• A committee of members elected to administer the temporal affairs of a parish. (noun)
• A business meeting of parishioners in a parish. (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.

• "At last he dropped asleep in the middle of a story about a vestry he worked for that hadn't acted fair and square by him like he had by them, or it (I don't know if vestry is singular or plural), and we went home."
• "I suppose they thought the neighbourhood of the vestry was the last place in the world where anybody would think of looking after them, but, however that may be, there they were."
• "And we swear to you, (under correction from the parish vestry, which is entitled to half-a-crown an oath,) that the circulating libraries would make a driveler of Seneca!"