deacon

1. 1.

   a Protestant layman who assists the minister

   SynonymsProtestant deacon

   Broaderchurch officer

   Narrowerdeaconess
2. 2.

   a cleric ranking just below a priest in Christian churches; one of the Holy Orders

   BroaderclergymanHoly Order

Other forms of deacon

plural

deacons·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about deacon

What does deacon mean?

deacon means "a Protestant layman who assists the minister". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in deacon?

deacon has 2 syllables: dea-con. The stress falls on "dea". In IPA it is /ˈdikən/.

What is another word for deacon?

Close synonyms include Protestant deacon. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is deacon a common word?

deacon is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.