breviary
Americannoun
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Roman Catholic Church. a book containing all the daily psalms, hymns, prayers, lessons, etc., necessary for reciting the office.
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a book of daily prayers and readings in some other churches.
noun
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RC Church a book of psalms, hymns, prayers, etc, to be recited daily by clerics in major orders and certain members of religious orders as part of the divine office
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a similar book in the Orthodox Church
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of breviary
First recorded in 1540–50, breviary is from the Latin word breviārium an abridgment. See brevi-, -ary
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He had a worn leather breviary stuffed with prayers and Mass cards he’d been collecting for years, and he read through them all at the dining-room table every night during the 11 o’clock news.
From New York Times ● May 26, 2020
F.L.N. technicians have drawn up a "breviary of errors" made in the name of land reform in other emergent countries.
From Time Magazine Archive
Father Laberge removed his shoes, climbed into his upper berth, and began reading his breviary.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then with Father Angelus, his secretary, he read his breviary before reading and decoding the day's dispatches.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the wall hung a little cupboard which held Brother Luke’s few personal belongings and his breviary.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
Moreover, the widespread liturgical experimentation encouraged by Vatican II seriously undermined a profitable "black book" trade in breviaries, missals and hymnals.
From Time Magazine Archive
I doubt whether the two priests ever thumbed their breviaries so devoutly in their lives.
From Tracks of a Rolling Stone by Coke, Henry J. (Henry John)
Most priests will have observed that missals and breviaries differ with regard to the rite of the Feast of St. Andrew Avellino, some giving it as a double, others as a semi-double.
From The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, December 1864 by Various
Chapter 1.XLI.—How the Monk made Gargantua sleep, and of his hours and breviaries.
From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 1 by Motteux, Peter Anthony
Is adoration of pretty little Conchas set down in black and red in your breviaries?
From The Firebrand by Crockett, S. R. (Samuel Rutherford)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
