Dēan, n.

n. [O. Fr. dean, deen, dein, now doyen, the eldest of a corporation, a dean, Pr. dega, degua, Sp. & It. decano, O. Sp. dean, Pg. deão, from Lat. decanus, the chief of ten, one set over ten persons, e. g., over soldiers and over monks, from decem, ten, Gr. δέκα. “Let none challenge the words of impropriety, seeing a dean, in Latin decanus, hath his name from δέκα, ten, over which number he is properly to be preposed. For nothing more common than to wean words from their infant and original sense, and by custom to extend them to a larger signification, as dean afterward plainly denoted a superior over others, whether fewer than ten . . . or more.” Fuller.

1Sense 1. An ecclesiastical dignitary, subordinate to a bishop, and of the three following classes: (a.) The rural dean, whose office was of ancient date in the church; his duties were to exercise a superintendency over a certain number of the parishes in a diocese, to preside at the assemblies of their clergy, and to be the medium of communication between them and their spiritual superior. The office of rural dean has fallen into disuse, though attempts have been made to revive it. (b.) The dean of a cathedral church, or the chief officer of a chapter: he is an ecclesiastical magistrate next in degree to the bishop. (c.) Dean in peculiar, a dean holding a preferment which has some peculiarity relative to spiritual superiors and the jurisdiction exercised in it. [Eng.]

2Sense 2. An officer in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, England, appointed to superintend the religious service in the college chapels, and to enforce the attendance of the students upon it.

3Sense 3. The chief or head of the faculty in some English universities, as that of London.

4Sense 4. A registrar or secretary of the faculty in a department of a college, as in a medical, or theological, or scientific department. [U. S.]

Dean and chapter, the bishop’s council, to aid him with their advice in affairs of religion, and in the temporal concerns of his see. — Dean of a guild, its presiding officer. — Dean of a monastery, a superior established under the abbot, to ease him in taking care of ten monks.