I hope I’m not wasting bandwidth… but I’m struggling with a word that is driving me insane.
I’m sure I’ve heard or seen this word before… but for the life of me I cannot find it in any of today’s’ dictionaries.

The word sounds like “deaner” or “deener” (but I guess could also be spelled diener)… where I THOUGHT I heard it used once as a name for someone who worked as church sexton or verger or morgue or graveyard attendant. I cannot find this word defined anywhere, yet I am sure it is a word.

Please help before I go crazy… If this really is a name for church custodian or a morgue worker (or anything remotely similar) please contact me and provide some info. If not… I guess it’s just some nonsense that I made up!

Ogden.w.rogers@uwrf.edu

Ogden Rogers
Professor of Social Work
University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA

“Deaner” is indeed a word and it is an assistant to one conducting an autopsy. “Deaner” (usu. spelt “deener”) is also Australian slang for a shilling.

Wordsmith and Timber Beast have it. It’s from the German Diener (first sense) and means servant, manservant, server, valet, butler, slave, or attendant, depending upon the context.

Thanks so much to everybody… upon further investigation I did indeed find it also in Dorland’ s Illustrated medical dictionary: “from Diener- “servant”: a man-of-all-work in a laboratory”.

This makes sense… the place where I heared this word first used was a small hospital in Berks County, Pennsylvania, which had a long Pennsylvania German influence in many words.

Ogden Rogers, Ph.D.
Professor of Social Work
University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA