Custodian
nounA person who is responsible for looking after or guarding something, such as a building, a collection, or important records.
How to spell custodian
9 letters · 4 syllables
How to pronounce custodian
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does custodian mean?
- nounA person who is responsible for looking after or guarding something, such as a building, a collection, or important records.
Custodian in a sentence
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The museum hired a custodian to protect its rarest manuscripts.
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As custodian of the building, he held the keys to every office.
Where does custodian come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word traces back to the Latin custos, meaning 'a guardian' or 'a keeper', and its related noun custodia, meaning 'guardianship' or 'safe keeping'. English first took in custody during the 1400s for the idea of holding or protecting something safely, and custodian was later built on that base by adding the agent suffix -ian, which marks a person who does a thing. By the early 1700s custodian was in regular use for someone formally charged with the care of property, records, or people. The same Latin custos lies behind the legal phrase 'in custody', which is a useful memory hook: a custodian is literally the one who holds something in safe keeping. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle and end, where the vowels both soften to a schwa, so the -od- and the -ian can be easy to garble.
How the word is built
- custod- (from Latin custos, custodis: guardian, keeper)
- -ian (one who, agent suffix)
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