breviary
Americannoun
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breviaries
plural
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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
At 1 he lunches in his upstairs apartment, at 1:30 he reads his breviary.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the cover of the black volumes were the arms of the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice: the breviary was bought in 1956.
From Time Magazine Archive
Father Laberge removed his shoes, climbed into his upper berth, and began reading his breviary.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then, breviary in hand, one of the female teachers led us in singing hymns and reciting psalms.
From "Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography" by Mark Mathabane
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
Brevier, brev-ēr′, n. a small type between bourgeois and minion, originally used in printing breviaries.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries, Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels.
From Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries, Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) by Andrew Lang
Brass candlesticks and old Venetian glass were huddled away in inlaid cabinets, and half-hidden with old illuminated breviaries and pinned rolls of lace.
From My Friend the Chauffeur by Frederic Lowenheim
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.
