censer

From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman censier, from Old French encensier, from encens (“incense”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛn.sə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛn.sɚ/

• Audio (US)

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• Homophones: censor, sensor

censer (plural censers)

1. An ornamental container for burning incense, especially during religious ceremonies.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 215:

     A thousand wax tapers burned in honour of the Madonna. Four beautiful children swung the silver censers before her picture, till a cloud of incense arose and floated in broken masses to the fretted roof, and the whole air was heavy with perfume.

   • 1859 [1845], Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”, in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe‎, volume II: Poems and Tales:

     Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer / Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

2. A person who censes, a person who perfumes with incense.

• (container): thurible, incense burner

• hill censer

• incense boat

• censer on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• “censer”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
• “censer”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "censer" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.

• Screen, scener, scerne, screen, secern