ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Undertaker

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /ˈʌndə(ɹ)ˌteɪkə(ɹ)/ · Part of speech noun

Quick meaning: Undertaker is a noun meaning A funeral director; someone whose business is to manage funerals, burials and cremations.

Meaning

A funeral director; someone whose business is to manage funerals, burials and cremations.

More Meanings

  1. (rare) One who undertakes or commits to doing something.
  2. (historical) A contractor for the royal revenue in England, one of those who undertook to manage the House of Commons for the king in the Addled Parliament of 1614.
  3. (historical) A person receiving land in Ireland during the Elizabethan era, so named because they gave an undertaking to abide by several conditions regarding marriage, to be loyal to the crown, and to use English as their spoken language.

Example Sentences

In 1588, Edmund Spenser became an undertaker in the first Elizabethan plantation, receiving the forfeited Irish estate of Kilcolman Castle.
The undertaker of the enterprise is usually known today by the French term entrepreneur because we have surrendered the English word to the undertakers of funerals.
A company shall not be appointed to be a water undertaker unless it is a limited company or a statutory water company and shall not be appointed to be a sewerage undertaker unless it is a limited company.

Word Forms

Synonyms for undertaker

Depending on context, synonyms include mortician.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include mortician, funeral, burial, mortuary, contractor, entrepreneur.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.