prothesis

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Linguistics The addition of a phoneme or syllable at the beginning of a word, as in Spanish espina, "thorn,” from Latin spina.
2. n. Eastern Orthodox Church The preparation of the bread and wine for the Eucharist.
3. n. Eastern Orthodox Church The table used for this preparation.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In the Gr. Ch.: The preparation and preliminary oblation of the eucharistic elements before the liturgy: more fully called the office of prothesis. This office is said responsively by priest and deacon. The priest signs an oblate with the holy lance, thrusts the lance into the right, left, upper, and lower sides of the holy lamb, lifts this off, cuts it crosswise, and stabs it. He then blesses the chalice which the deacon has prepared (mixed). Appropriate prayers and verses of Scripture accompany these rites. He then takes from the remainder of this and other oblates pyramidal pieces called portions of the Virgin Mary, apostles, martyrs, etc., the living and the dead, commemorating these classes, and arranging the portions in a prescribed manner on the disk (paten). Incense is then offered, the asterisk and veils placed over the elements, and the prayer of prothesis said. The elements are left in the chapel of prothesis till taken to the altar at the Great Entrance.
2. n. The table on which this preparation is made (the table or altar of prothesis). It answers to the Western credence-table.
3. n. The apartment or the part of the bema or sanctuary in which this table is situated and the office used (the chapel of prothesis). See bema and the cut there given.
4. n. In grammar, addition of one or more sounds or letters at the beginning of a word. Some Latin writers use this form for the Greek πρόσθεσ, σ1ις (see prosthesis) apparently through misapprehension, and some modern writers prefer it as more specific.
5. n. In surgery, prosthesis.

Wiktionary

1. n. linguistics The prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word without changing its morphological structure, as in nother, from other (“a whole nother thing”), or Spanish esfera from Latin sphaera ("sphere").
2. n. a type of preparatory ceremony, part of the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Eccl.) A credence table; -- so called by the Eastern or Greek Church.
2. n. (Med.) See Prosthesis.