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Help me with a word... Deaner? or Deener?
Guest
1
2008/04/25 - 1:24pm

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

Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
(Offline)
2
2008/04/26 - 6:22am

Could it be beadle? "A minor parish official whose duties include ushering and preserving order at services and sometimes civil functions." I know it doesn't begin with a "d" but it could otherwise fit.

Guest
3
2008/04/26 - 9:28am

“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.

Timber Beast
4
2008/04/26 - 9:45am

According to "Police Procedure & Investigation: A Guide for Writers" by Lee Lofland, a "diener" is an autopsy technician and means "servant."

Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
(Offline)
5
2008/04/26 - 3:08pm

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.

Guest
6
2008/04/27 - 12:55pm

Also, cf. German “Dienst,” service.

OgdenRogers
7
2008/06/09 - 11:59am

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

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