oblate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Having the shape of a spheroid generated by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis.
2. adj. Having an equatorial diameter greater than the distance between poles; compressed along or flattened at the poles: Planet Earth is an oblate solid.
3. n. A layperson dedicated to religious life.
4. n. Roman Catholic Church A member of one of various religious communities for men or women.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To offer; present; propose.
2. To offer as an oblation; devote to the service of God or of the church.
3. n. In the Roman Catholic Church, a secular person devoted to a monastery, but not under its vows. Specifically — One who devoted himself, his dependents, and estates to the service of some monastery into which he was admitted as a kind of lay brother.
4. n. A child dedicated by his or her parents to a monastic life, and therefore held in monastic discipline and domicile.
5. n. One who assumed the cowl in immediate anticipation of death.
6. n. One of a congregation of secular priests who do not bind themselves by monastic vows. The congregation of the Oblates of St. Charles or Oblates of the Blessed Virgin and St. Ambrose was founded in the diocese of Milan in the sixteenth century by St. Charles Borromeo; that of the Oblates of Italy was founded at Turin in 1816; and that of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, founded in the south of France in 1815, was brought into the United States in 1848.
7. n. One of a community of women engaged in religious and charitable work. Such communities are the oblates founded by St. Francesca of Rome about 1433, and the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a sisterhood of colored women founded at Baltimore in 1825 for the education and the amelioration of the condition of colored women.
8. n. Eccles., a loaf of unconsecrated bread prepared for use at the celebration of the eucharist; altar-bread. From the earliest times of which we have distinct information, oblates have been circular in form, of moderate thickness, and marked with a cross or crosses. In the Western Church they are unleavened, much reduced in size, and commonly known as wafers, or, especially after consecration, as hosts. In the Anglican Church the use of leavened bread in loaves of ordinary size and form was permitted at the Reformation, and became the prevalent though not exclusive use. The Greek Church uses a circular oblate of leavened bread, in the center of which is a square projection called the Holy Lamb. This projecting part alone is consecrated, and the remainder serves for the antidoron.
9. In geometry, flattened at the poles: said of a figure generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its minor axis: as, the earth is an oblate spheroid. See prolate.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Flattened or depressed at the poles.
2. n. Roman Catholic Church A person dedicated to a life of religion or monasticism, especially a member of an order without religious vows or a lay member of a religious community.
3. n. A child given up by its parents into the keeping or dedication of a religious order or house.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. (Geom.) Flattened or depressed at the poles.
2. adj. Offered up; devoted; consecrated; dedicated; -- used chiefly or only in the titles of Roman Catholic orders. See Oblate, n.
3. n. One of an association of priests or religious women who have offered themselves to the service of the church. There are three such associations of priests, and one of women, called oblates.
4. n. One of the Oblati.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. having the equatorial diameter greater than the polar diameter; being flattened at the poles
2. n. a lay person dedicated to religious work or the religious life