Book of Common Prayer

American  

noun

1. the service book of the Church of England, essentially adopted but changed in details by other churches of the Anglican communion.

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Book of Common Prayer British  

noun

1. the official book of church services of the Church of England, until 1980, when the Alternative Service Book was sanctioned

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Book of Common Prayer ¹ Cultural  

1. The book used in worship by the Anglican Communion; it has had several revisions since the Reformation, and different versions exist for different countries.

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Book of Common Prayer ² Cultural  

1. The book used in worship by the Anglican Communion. Its early versions, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were widely admired for the dignity and beauty of their language.

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The Book of Common Prayer, widely admired for the dignity and beauty of its language, has had a strong effect on the worship of Protestants outside the Anglican Communion, many of whom have borrowed its expressions. Most traditional Protestant wedding ceremonies, for example, follow the pattern of the Book of Common Prayer very closely.

The Book of Common Prayer has had a strong effect on literature in English through such expressions as “Let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace,” and “We have left undone those things which we ought to have done.”