Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person submitting a request or application; a petitioner.
- n. A candidate for admission into a religious order.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who or that which postulates, demands, or asks; specifically, a candidate for membership in a religious order during the period preparatory to his admission into the novitiate; in the American Episcopal Church, an applicant for admission to candidateship for the ministry, not yet received as candidate.
Wiktionary
- n. Christianity A person seeking admission to a religious order
- n. A person who submits a petition for something; a petitioner.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who makes a request or demand; hence, a candidate.
WordNet 3.0
- n. one submitting a request or application especially one seeking admission into a religious order
Etymologies
- From French postulant, present participle of postuler. (Wiktionary)
- French, from Old French, from Latin postulāns, postulant-, present participle of postulāre, to request; see postulate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The fact that there is no such law is itself the reason why neither a man nor a woman is permitted nowadays to take permanent vows until after a considerable period of probation, first as a 'postulant' and then as a novice.”
“The attractionThat desire is what drew first-year postulant Sister Zandra Man into the order.”
“She is aided by mistress of novices and wrestling coach Sister Acacius (Julie Halston), currently besieged by a wide-eyed postulant with healing powers (Amy Rutberg), appropriately named Agnes, and a sinister new arrival Sister Walburga (Alison Fraser), a cartoon-evil German from the "mother house in Berlin.”
“Marla Mindelle plays the postulant who is supposed to wow us with her voice, but she too sounds pinched in the upper register, so you can never relax during her big solo number "The Life I Never Led.”
“In Tibet, law of the monastery proclaims that postulant monks shall seek admission only in their respective monastic sections.”
Contemporary Scholars - The 100th Ganden Tripa (Ganden Throneholder)
“When she recovers her health, Catherine will return to the novitiate in Connecticut and resume her role as a postulant.”
“Marc was accepted as a postulant, and was going to join the Maine, NY friary in August.”
“Our friend George took a postulant 666 brand to the forehead and was forced to subsist on protein cakes made from the corpses of other tardy believers.”
“The superior at Godric's Ford first, and the prioress of Polesworth after, however astonished they might have been at being confronted with such a postulant, must have seen something in Avice of Thornbury well worth acquiring for the order.”
“And her enforced guests in their twin cots in one cell were quiet and private together, and even Melicent, now a lay guest of the house and no postulant, went about the business of the day with a pure, still face, and left the two young men to their own measures.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘postulant’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - p
from phrontistery.info
pustule, purulence, pushful, purser, purpureal, putative, purpure, purpresture, purloin, purline, purlieu, purlicue and 1766 more...
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post-
after in time; following; later
postgraduate, postaxial, postscript, postdoctorate, postclassical, postdate, postcard, post-traumatic, postdoc, posterity, posthumous, postmark and 4 more...
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I am the law!
Words I learnt at law school
appeal, blackletter, contract, dictum, headnote, judgment, litigation, malfeasance, negligence, plaintiff, quantum, remedy and 216 more...
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amazing grace
hymn, nave, narthex, chapel, novice, asperges, altar, annunciation, liturgical, litany, nicene creed, cloister and 209 more...
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Underworld
Don DeLillo
roily, reverie, slidy, bandido, mohair, brilliantine, stupe, juke step, jowly, juke, wicket, quidbit and 391 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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new acquisitions
found in the wild (i.e., not on Wordie!)
samara, indehiscent, paschal, rogation, wen, rete, diriment, epicene, duramen, euhemerism, objurgate, canaille and 429 more...
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catpita's Words
malarkey, bugaboo, mezuzah, pulchritude, mollify, whirligig, uxorious, nacreous, extirpate, nictitate, doddle, fussbudget and 19 more...
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The Anatomy of a Ghost
Andrew Taylor
luddite, guile, double-fronted, guileless, fanlight, gangling, sedan chair, rout, ashlar, potation, inviolate, sash and 22 more...
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Honorifics
emperor, empress, king, queen, monarch, prince, princess, admiral, general, herald, warden, patriarch and 68 more...
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wyclif's Words
leitmotif, gravitas, blackguard, transubstantiation, comcomitance, consubstantiation, bailiwick, schadenfreude, masticate, supralapsarian, infralapsarian, mestizo and 3 more...
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Requestuary
WHAT WHO WHEN HOW WHY WHERE
pysmatic, adjure, impetrate, percontation, zetetic, entreaty, probe, query, inquire, solicit, quiz, interpellate and 41 more...
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