custodian

From a shortening of Latin custōdiānātus, from Latin custōdia (“a keeping, watch, guard, prison”), from custōs (“a keeper, watchman, guard”). By surface analysis, custody +‎ -ian.

• IPA^(key): /kəˈstoʊdiən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊdiən

custodian (plural custodians)

1. A person entrusted with the custody or care of something or someone; a caretaker or keeper.

   After their parents' death, their aunt became the children's custodian.

   The building's custodian could fix nearly anything. The place always looked great!

   • 1947, David Saavedra, Go South Young Man, page 80:

     The middle class is the. demitone of human society, custodian of the balance, and no fair social order could exist without the cooperation of this class.

   • 2021 April 21, Cara Giaimo, “One of the World’s Oldest Science Experiments Comes Up From the Dirt”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Dr. Weber and her colleagues are the latest custodians of the Beal seed viability experiment: a multicentury attempt to figure out how long seeds can lie dormant in the soil without losing their ability to germinate.

2. An administrator.
3. A goalkeeper.
4. A protector or guard.
5. (US, Canada) A janitor; a cleaner.

• custodial
• custody

• “custodian”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “custodian”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “custodian”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

custodian

1. third-person plural present indicative of custodiar