beatitude

American  

[bee-at-i-tood, -tyood] / biˈæt ɪˌtud, -ˌtyud /

noun

1. supreme blessedness; exalted happiness.

2. (often initial capital letter) any of the declarations of blessedness pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

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beatitude ¹ British  

/ bɪˈætɪˌtjuːd /

noun

1. supreme blessedness or happiness

2. an honorific title of the Eastern Christian Church, applied to those of patriarchal rank

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Beatitude ² British  

/ bɪˈætɪˌtjuːd /

noun

1. New Testament any of eight distinctive sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–11) in which he declares that the poor, the meek, those that mourn, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure of heart, those that thirst for justice, and those that are persecuted will, in various ways, receive the blessings of heaven

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Etymology

Origin of beatitude

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin beātitūdō perfect happiness, equivalent to beāti- ( beatific ) + -tūdō -tude

Example Sentences

Religious folks have words for such spasmodic departures from the everyday, like beatitude, nirvana, ecstasy.

From Salon

In the unrepentant shadows it’s hard to tell if he’s studying or mediating, but it’s still a beatitude of Blackness: color as signifier, color as artifact, color as stone cold fact.

From New York Times

After surgery, Price describes “a kind of stunned beatitude.”

From Salon

There is no Dante in Beatrice’s beatitude, Hägglund writes, and no Beatrice in Dante’s beatitude.

From The New Yorker

It also supplies a backdrop of human folly to throw the beatitude of Adam and his robot kin into sharp relief.

From Los Angeles Times