Incumbent
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( n.) A person who is in present possession of a benefice or of any office.
(2): ( a.) Lying; resting; reclining; recumbent; superimposed; superincumbent.
(3): ( a.) Lying, resting, or imposed, as a duty or obligation; obligatory; always with on or upon.
(4): ( a.) Leaning or resting; - said of anthers when lying on the inner side of the filament, or of cotyledons when the radicle lies against the back of one of them.
(5): ( a.) Bent downwards so that the ends touch, or rest on, something else; as, the incumbent toe of a bird.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [2]
a clergyman in the Church of England who is in present possession of (incumbit, is close to, rests upon, as its immediate occupant) a benefice (Eden). Sir E. Coke, however, says that the title means that the clergyman "in possession of a benefice ought diligently to bend all his study to the care of his church."
