Other forms: ministers, ministered
A minister is one of the senior politicians who run a government department — the health minister, the finance minister, the minister for transport. In Britain they meet round one table as the Cabinet, with the Prime Minister at the head.
In many Protestant churches the minister is the person who leads worship and marries and buries the congregation: a Methodist minister, a minister of the Church of Scotland. The ministry is both the department a minister runs and the church's calling. As a verb, minister takes TO and means attending to someone's needs — nurses ministering to the wounded — and it keeps a gentle, old-fashioned air. American English uses secretary for the government job, which is why Washington has a Secretary of State where London has a Foreign Secretary. Note the range of the word: it belongs to government and to the church, and nowhere else — nobody calls the head of their office a minister.
1nounministerA senior member of a government, in charge of a department.~96%
“The minister announced the changes in Parliament.”
synonyms: secretary
2nounpastorA member of the clergy in some Protestant churches, who leads services.~2%
“The minister met the family the day before the funeral.”
synonyms: pastor, clergyman
3verbattendTo attend to someone's needs, especially when they are ill or in trouble.~2%
“She ministered to her father through his last months.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 6 sentences found in the wild and placed 6 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
minister is a senior official.
Latin minister meant a servant or an attendant, built on minor, 'less' — the lesser one, the person who waits on somebody. English took it through Old French ministre, and the old meaning is still visible when a nurse ministers to the sick: even a Prime Minister is, by name, a first servant.
Proto-Indo-European
*mey- (small)
Latin
minister — an attendant, servant, assistant, a priest's assistant or other under official
Old French
ministre
Middle English
ministre
English, today
minister
Built from
From Middle English ministre, from Old French ministre, from Latin minister (“an attendant, servant, assistant, a priest's assistant or other under official”), from minor (“less”) + -ter; see minor. a doublet of Minorite.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA