Liturgy definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (10)

American Heritage Dictionary (2)

noun A prescribed form or set of forms for public religious worship.
noun Christianity The sacrament of the Eucharist.

Century Dictionary (5)

In ancient Greece, particularly at Athens, a form of personal service to the state which citizens possessing property to a certain amount were bound, when called upon, to perform at their own cost. These liturgies were ordinary, including the presentation of dramatic performances, musical and poetic contests, etc., the celebration of some festivals, and other public functions entailing expense upon the incumbent; or extraordinary, as the fitting-out of a trireme in case of war.
A form or method of conducting public worship; an appointed form for the words and acts used in the rites and ceremonies of the Christian church. The word denotes especially an appointed form for the holy communion, the hours or daily prayer, litanies, baptism, confirmation, marriage, burial, penance, visitation and unction of the sick or dying, ordinations, and other offices such as are contained in the Missal, Breviary, Ritual, Pontifical, Euchologion, Horologion, etc., of the Roman Catholic and the Greek Church, or united in one volume in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Liturgies seem to have originated partly in the inheritance or adoption of Jewish forms of worship and their adaptation to Christian purposes. The Book of Psalms, especially as containing inspired prayers, praises, thanksgivings, etc., furnished a large amount of liturgical material. On the other hand, the forms given by Christ, such as the Lord's Prayer, the words of institution in the eucharist, the baptismal formula, etc., became centers of development for the new and distinctively Christian parts of the offices.
Specifically, in liturgiology, and as the name most frequently used in the Greek Church, the form of service used in the celebration of the eucharist, or that service itself. In this last sense Latin and Roman Catholic writers generally prefer the word mass. An account of primitive Christian liturgical worship is given by Justin Martyr (in the middle of the second century a. d.), and this agrees with the Clementine Liturgy, a form referable to about a. d. 250, and so called because incorporated in the Apostolical Constitutions, a compilation attributed to St. Clement of Rome. Five great groups or families of liturgies are recognized, each of which can be referred to a single original liturgy represented by one or more direct derivatives still existing. They are: (1) The Liturgy of St. James (or of Jerusalem), also called the Hierosolymitan Liturgy, the Greek form of which has been somewhat modified by that of St. Chrysostom; it exists also in a Syriac Jacobite form, with numerous derivatives. From its Greek form came the Greek Liturgy of St. Basil (of Cappadocia), and from this the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom on the one hand and the Armenian Liturgy on the other. The liturgies of St. Basil and St. Chrysostom, together with the Liturgy of the Presanctified (see below), are known as Liturgies of Constantinople, and are almost exclusively used at the present day by the whole Greek Church. (2) The Liturgy of St. Mark (or of Alexandria), the original Catholic or Greek form of which has been influenced by that of Constantinople. It is used also to the present day in a Coptic (Egyptian Monophysite) form named after St. Cyril. The Copts, however, use as their principal liturgy one named after St. Basil, different from that of the same name in the first group. The Ethiopian (that is, Abyssinian) forms belong to this group. (3) The Liturgy of Sts. Adæus and Maris (or of Edessa), also known as the Liturgy of the Apostles. It is a very ancient orthodox liturgy, and is the original of the East Syrian group. It is often called Nestorian, because used by Nestorians, and because the ancient Malabar and other Nestorian liturgies are derived from it. (4) The Liturgy of St. Peter (or of Rome), the earliest extant forms of which are the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries. It is the principal liturgy of the Roman or Petrine group, and has almost entirely supplanted all the liturgies in the Latin language—that is, those in this and the next group. Allied but independent forms are the Ambrosian Liturgy, which is that of the archdiocese of Milan, still sometimes used, and the liturgies or uses of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval English Church, of which the most important was the Use of Sarum. These medieval English uses are the sources of the Communion Office in the successive revisions of the Anglican Prayer-book. The Nonjurors' office of 1718 and the Scottish office of 1764 were, however, largely conformed to the Liturgy of St. James, and from these the American office derives its prayer of consecration. (5) The Liturgy of St. Paul (or of St. John), also called the Liturgy of Ephesus, is the inferred original of the so-called Ephesine Liturgies, these names being not historical or traditional, but the generally accepted result of scientific combination. These liturgies are also called Gallican or Hispano-Gallican, and are the forms. Latin in language, anciently used in Britain, Gaul, and Spain, and traced through the church at Lyons to Ephesus. The varieties used in Gaul have been supplanted since the time of Charlemagne by the Roman form, which has also been substituted since the eleventh century for the ancient liturgy of Spain, known as the Mozarabic. This last, however, as revived at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Cardinal Ximenes, is still used in three or four chapels or churches, but with some assimilation to the Roman rite.

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A requiem, or Mass for the dead, is a set of prayers in Latin liturgy said afer someone dies, but according to Pickett, Brahms 'purpose was more for commiseration than formality. — JuneauEmpire.com
The words Starbuck recites to her pilots about how they're going out to try to find habitable planets become a kind of liturgy, a thin chain that Starbuck clings to just to keep going. — GALACTICA SITREP
Wherever the focus of the liturgy moves from the sacramental mystery transpiring on the altar to the 'community building' activities of the gathered congregation, wherever the liturgy itself is emptied of mystery, beauty, awe, and reverence, wherever, the liturgy is made vacuous and banal, wherever, in brief, people no longer understand what the liturgy is and why we are doing it, decorum suffers. — GetReligion
"Tenebrae" is a Latin word meaning "shadows" and this liturgy is one of lessons and prayers, with the gradual extinguishing of lights. — The Times-Reporter Home RSS
To ensure the solemnity and orderliness of the celebration of this form of Mass, the participation of other ministers (i.e., lectors, Master of Ceremonies, servers, choir, etc.) in the liturgy is to be determined and regulated by the Ministry for Liturgical Affairs of the Archdiocese of Manila. — RORATE CÆLI

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sacrament · catechism · iconography · scripture · invocation · mythology · ritual · symbolism · incantation · observance · dogma · creed

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Late Latin lītūrgia, from Greek leitourgiā, public service, from leitourgos, public servant, from earlier lēitourgos : lēiton, town hall (from lēos, dialectal variant of lāos, people) + ergon, work; see werg- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (1)

Formerly liturgie; from Old French liturgie, lyturgie, French liturgie = Spanish liturgía = Portuguese Italian liturgia, from Middle Latin liturgia, from Greek λειτουργία, also ληιτουργία, public service, a public office or duty (see def. 1), any service, especially ecclesiastical the service or ministry of priests, public worship; in a restricted sense, the eucharist, from λειτουργός, a public servant, a minister, ecclesiastical a priest, from λεῑτος, λέϊτος, also λήϊτος, λῆτος, and λάιᾔτος, λαῖτος (rare), public (from λαός, λεώς, people), + *ἔργειν, do, work, later ἔργον = English work: see work.

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