Synonyms of janitor

janitor

noun

ˈja-nə-tər 

1

as in custodian

a person who takes care of a property sometimes for an absent owner

got a job as the night janitor at the elementary school

Synonyms & Similar Words

• custodian
• keeper
• warden
• caretaker
• watchman
• guardian
• steward
• curator
• sexton
• cocurator

2

as in porter

a person who tends a door

according to popular Christian tradition, St. Peter acts as janitor at heaven's pearly gates

Synonyms & Similar Words

• porter
• doorman
• gatekeeper
• doorkeeper

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of janitor

One August morning, after more than five years and five thousand attempts, a lab tech named Cliff Kortman—who had originally been hired as a janitor but came to run many of the lampricide tests—reported a different outcome. —Katie Thornton, New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2025

Qing Yuan had seen many of these tiny corpses, pinkish, yellowish, tin-gray, curled up, always seemingly asleep, tossed by janitors into fires outside the building. —Literary Hub, 23 Oct. 2025

All sorts of ideas for Halloween pet attire are out there, including an online photo of a dog dressed as a mop sitting in one of those yellow janitor buckets with wheels. —Susan Tompor, Freep.com, 22 Oct. 2025

Once freed from slavery, Washington toiled in coal mines, worked as a janitor in exchange for formal education and became a great American orator and leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. —Jennifer Smith Richards, ProPublica, 22 Oct. 2025