usher [ME] The primary function of an usher was originally to be a doorkeeper, and the word is based on Latin ostium ‘door’. The duties of an usher extended to showing people to their seats, as ushers in a cinema still do, and from the mid 15th century into the 19th an usher could also be an assistant schoolmaster. The use of usher for someone assisting people at a wedding was originally American, from the late 19th century.