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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

clerk.

One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/klɑːk/Received-Pronunciation/klɝk/General-American/klɐːk/Australia/klɜːk/Australia
  1. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.

  2. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker. A salesclerk; a person who serves customers in a store or market.

  3. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker. A law clerk.

  4. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker. An employee at a hotel who deals with guests.

  5. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker. The chief legal advisor of a legislature or legislative chamber, who is usually also responsible for keeping minutes of sittings.

  6. A facilitator of a Quaker meeting for business affairs.

    Quakerism
  7. In the Church of England, the layman that assists in the church service, especially in reading the responses (also called parish clerk and Bible clerk).

    archaic
  8. A cleric or clergyman (the legal title for clergy of the Church of England is "Clerk in Holy Orders", still used in legal documents and cherished by some of their number).

    dated
  9. A scholar.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English clerc, from Old English clerc, from Late Latin clēricus (“priest, clergyman, cleric”, also generally “learned man, clerk”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”, adj. in church jargon), from κλῆρος (klêros, “lot, inheritance”, originally “shard used in casting lots”). Doublet of cleric. Compare typologically Russian дьяк (dʹjak) (akin to дья́кон (dʹjákon)).

verb/klɑːk/Received-Pronunciation/klɝk/General-American/klɐːk/Australia/klɜːk/Australia
  1. To act as a clerk, to perform the duties or functions of a clerk.

    The law school graduate clerked for the supreme court judge for the summer.
  2. To assemble information about a patient during their initial assessment by actions such as a taking a detailed medical history and performing a physical examination.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English clerc, from Old English clerc, from Late Latin clēricus (“priest, clergyman, cleric”, also generally “learned man, clerk”), from Ancient Greek κληρικός (klērikós, “of the clergy”, adj. in church jargon), from κλῆρος (klêros, “lot, inheritance”, originally “shard used in casting lots”). Doublet of cleric. Compare typologically Russian дьяк (dʹjak) (akin to дья́кон (dʹjákon)).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.