The Collaborative International Dictionary
Subdeacon \Sub*dea"con\, n. [Pref. sub- + deacon: cf. L. subdiaconus.] (Eccl.) One belonging to an order in the Roman Catholic Church, next interior to the order of deacons; also, a member of a minor order in the Greek Church.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A Catholic clerical rank below that of a deacon, obsolete in the Roman Catholic Church. 2 A Catholic cleric who assists the deacon at High Mass and normally reads the Epistle at the eucharist.
WordNet
n. a clergyman an order below deacon; one of the Holy Orders in the unreformed western Christian Church and the eastern Catholic Churches but now suppressed in the Roman Catholic Church
Wikipedia
Subdeacon (or sub-deacon) is a title used in various branches of Christianity.
Usage examples of "subdeacon".
Often for matters of little importance your cardinals have been sent to remote parts with sovereign powers, but in this desperate and deplorable affair, you have not sent so much as a single subdeacon or even an acolyte.
But he began to question him as soon as his uncle briefly excused himself after a whispered message from the subdeacon Torrildo.
When the subdeacon handed the censer to the priest, the vast old hall began to smell like a cemetery, and Kovrin felt bored.
Denis was safe enough as far as the sanctuary, for seminarians of deacon and subdeacon rank had the privilege of going into the church to pray at any time, even during the Great Silence of the early morning hours.
When he suggested, for instance, that the deacons and subdeacons veil their eyes with their sleeves at the Elevation of the Host, as if they were blinded by the nearness of the Body of Christ, Father Hobbes vetoed it.
The priest, one Tata Avilf, was an Ostrogoth and all his deacons, subdeacons and acolytes were of one or another Germanic nation or tribe.
The orders entitling the party, were bishops, priests, deacons and subdeacons, the inferior being reckoned Clerici in minoribus.
He longed for the minor sacred offices, to be vested with the tunicle of subdeacon at high mass, to stand aloof from the altar, forgotten by the people, his shoulders covered with a humeral veil, holding the paten within its folds or, when the sacrifice had been accomplished, to stand as deacon in a dalmatic of cloth of gold on the step below the celebrant, his hands joined and his face towards the people, and sing the chant Ite missa est.