ceremonious
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle French cérémonieux, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language code; the value "LL." is not valid. See WT:LOL. caerimoniosus, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin caerimonia.
Adjective
ceremonious (comparative more ceremonious, superlative most ceremonious)
- Fond of ceremony, ritual or strict etiquette; punctilious
- 1608, Thomas Dekker, Lanthorne and Candle-Light in The Guls Hornbook and The Belman of London, J.M. Dent, 1936, p. 163, [1]
- […] some Writers do almost nothing contrary to the custome, and some by vertue of that Priviledge, dare doe any thing. I am neither of that first order, nor of this last. The one is too fondly-ceremonious, the other too impudently audacious.
- 1958, C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1986, Chapter III, p. 23,
- Ancient and oriental cultures are in many ways more conventional, more ceremonious, and more courteous than our own.
- 1608, Thomas Dekker, Lanthorne and Candle-Light in The Guls Hornbook and The Belman of London, J.M. Dent, 1936, p. 163, [1]
- Characterized by ceremony or rigid formality
- c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
- O, the sacrifice! / How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly / It was i' the offering!
- 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 17, [2]
- Captain Vere advanced to meet him, […] and interrupting the other's wonted ceremonious salutation, said, "Nay, tell me how it is with yonder man," […]