a Hindu practice whereby a widow immolates herself on the funeral pyre of her husband: now abolished by law.
a Hindu widow who so immolates herself.
First recorded in 1780–90, sati is from the Sanskrit word satī good woman, woman devoted to her husband
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It mandated death or life term for those committing sati or abetting it.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2024
Coming after such a long delay, these acquittals could “reinforce a culture of sati glorification”, they wrote.
From BBC ● Oct. 18, 2024
Scholars of the history of self-immolation typically date the phenomenon to antiquity, to early Christian martyrdoms, and particularly to the Hindu practice of sati.
From Salon ● May 4, 2024
A wealthier widow, particularly from the Kshatriya or warrior caste, might throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre in an act of ritual suicide known as sati.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
The "sati," the burning of the widows, is abolished, but Brahmans are clever managers, and the widows often long for the sati.
From From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan by Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
For the past 17 years, Atul Sati, the Save Joshimath Committee member, has been convinced that a hydropower station located near his town could one day ruin it.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2023
"If that is true, it will be hard to save the rest of the city," says Atul Sati.
From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2023
"The administration woke up from its slumber when the situation started getting grave and now they started relief efforts," Sati said, "Our town is sinking and we need to save it."
From Reuters ● Jan. 7, 2023
There are only four classes of drugs that treat fungal infections, “and very few new ones in the pipeline,” said Dr. Hatim Sati, another W.H.O. official who helped to write the report.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2022
He enlarges the borders of the South; but he covets not the lands of the North: he does not smite the Sati, nor crush the Nemau-shau.
From Egyptian Literature Comprising Egyptian tales, hymns, litanies, invocations, the Book of the Dead, and cuneiform writings by Wilson, Epiphanius
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.
