Clerk

Clerk [fr. cleric, Sax.; clericus, Lat.], originally a learned man or man of letters, whence the term is appropriated to churchmen who were called clerks and now clergymen, the nobility and gentry being bred to the exercise of arms, and none left to cultivate the sciences but ecclesiastics. Where the canon law has full power, the word 'clerk' comprehends sacerdotes, diaconi, subdiaconi, lectores, acolyti, exorcist', and ostiarii. The word has been anciently used for a secular priest, in opposition to a religious or a regular, Jac. Law Dict.