Lector is Latin for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages it takes various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as French: lecteur, English: lector, Polish: lektor and Russian: лектор. It has various specialized uses.

Academic

The title lector may be applied to lecturers and readers at some universities. There is also the title lector jubilate, which is an equivalent of Doctor of Divinity. In language teaching at universities in Britain, a foreign native speaker of a Slavonic language is often called a lektor or lector. In Dutch higher education the title lector is used for the leader of a research group at a university of applied science. The lector has a comparable set of tasks as (higher ranked) full professors at a (research) university, albeit it at an applied rather than a fundamental scientific level.

Ecclesiastical

A religious reader is sometimes referred to as a lector. The lector proclaims the Scripture readings used in the Liturgy of the Word from the official, liturgical book (lectionary). The Roman Catholic Church has a rite by which it formally institutes men who may or may not be studying for the priesthood and diaconate as lectors (Canon Law 230.1).

In some Christian churches, the reader is responsible for reading aloud excerpts of the scripture at a liturgy. In early Christian times, the reader was of particular value due to the rarity of literacy.

Catholicism (Latin Rite)

In the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, the term "lector" or "reader" can mean someone who in a particular liturgy is assigned to read a Biblical text other than the Gospel. (Reading the Gospel at Mass is reserved specifically to the deacon or, in his absence, to the priest.) But it also has the more specific meaning of a person who has been "instituted" as a lector or reader, and is such even when not assigned to read in a specific liturgy. This is the meaning in which the term is used in this article.

In this sense, the office was formerly classed as one of the four minor orders and in recent centuries was generally conferred only on those preparing for ordination to the priesthood. With effect from 1 January 1973, the apostolic letter Ministeria quaedam of 15 August 1972 decreed instead that: