Definition of "undertaker" in English

noun

1. A funeral director; someone whose business is to manage funerals, burials and cremations.

2. (historical) A person receiving land in Ireland during the Elizabethan era, so named because they gave an undertaking to abide by several conditions regarding marriage, to be loyal to the crown, and to use English as their spoken language.

   • In 1588, Edmund Spenser became an undertaker in the first Elizabethan plantation, receiving the forfeited Irish estate of Kilcolman Castle.

3. (historical) A contractor for the royal revenue in England, one of those who undertook to manage the House of Commons for the king in the Addled Parliament of 1614.

4. (rare) One who undertakes or commits to doing something.