Stabat Mater

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A medieval Latin hymn on the sorrows of the Virgin Mary at the Crucifixion.
2. n. A musical setting for this hymn.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In the Rom. Cath. liturgy, a sequence on the Virgin Mary at the crucifixion, written about 1300 by Jacobus de Benedictis (Jacopone da Todi). It has also been ascribed to Innocent III. and others, and was probably modeled on older hymns such as the staurotheotokia of the Greek Church. It is sung after the Epistle on the Feasts of the Seven Dolours of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Friday before Good Friday and on the third Sunday in September.
2. n. A musical setting of this sequence. Famous examples have been written by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Rossini, Dvořák, and others.
3. n. A sequence regarding the Virgin Mary in contemplation of the infant Jesus. It first appeared in 1495, but has not been incorporated into a regular liturgy. It is more fully known as the Stabat Mater speciosa, to distinguish it from the Stabat Mater dolorosa (see def. 1).
4. n. A musical setting of this Christmas sequence, as in Liszt's “Christus.”

GNU Webster's 1913

1. A celebrated Latin hymn, beginning with these words, commemorating the sorrows of the mother of our Lord at the foot of the cross. It is read in the Mass of the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, and is sung by Catholics when making “the way of the cross” (Via Crucis). See station, 7 (c).