Meaning

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

Definitions by Sense

1. One who occupationally provides assistance by working with records, accounts, letters, etc.; an office worker.
2. (Quakerism) A facilitator of a Quaker meeting for business affairs.
3. (archaic) 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).
4. (dated) 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).
5. (obsolete) A scholar.
6. To act as a clerk, to perform the duties or functions of a clerk.
7. (medicine) 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.

Example Sentences

As office boy I made such a mark That they gave me the post of a junior clerk.

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.

clerks; a brand of humanity which, as the literature from Dickens to Gogol makes only too clear, was hardly to be envied except perhaps for the privilege of public service, the security which allowed them to starve at an even rhythm all their lives.

God save the King! Will no man say, amen? / Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.

13th century, Traditional carol, And all was for an appel, an appel that he toke/As clerkès finden written in their boke.

The law school graduate clerked for the supreme court judge for the summer.

1956, Jean Stafford, "A Reading Problem" in The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, New York: E.P. Dutton, 1984, p. 332, In the winter, they lived in a town called Hoxie, Arkansas, where Evangelist Gerlash clerked in the Buttorf drugstore and preached and baptized on the side.

He turned to a more attentive audience, and found it in the young fellow they called The Iceman, because he clerked in the swell jewelry store around the corner, and was always there with the finger advertisement for his boss’s diamondware.

Word Forms

• clerks
• clark
• clerking
• clerked

Synonyms for clerk

Related Words

When Should You Use Clerk?

Use clerk when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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