holy water

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English holy water, haly water, hali water, holiwater, halywater, from Old English hāliġwæter (“holy water”), equivalent to holy +‎ water.

Noun[edit]

holy water (usually uncountable, plural holy waters)

  1. (Christianity) In certain Christian churches, water that has been sanctified by a priest or bishop for the purpose of baptism or for the blessing of persons, places, or things.
    • 1660, Jeremy Taylor, The Worthy Communicant; or a Discourse of the Nature, Effects, and Blessings consequent to the worthy receiving of the Lords Supper:
      None comes to this holy feast but they whose sins are cleansed in baptism, who are sanctified in those holy waters of regeneration, who have obedient souls,
    • 1889, Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy, Fifty Years in the Church of Rome, page 307:
      ... with our signs of the cross and holy waters, our crucifixes and prayers to the saints, our scapulars and medals, our so humiliating auricular confession
    • 1979, “The Catechesis of Cyril of Jerusalem”, in Lucien Deiss, Matthew J. O'Connell, transl., Springtime of the Liturgy:
      In a parallel way, when you came up from the font and its holy waters, you received chrismation and the mark with which Christ was chrismated.

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Further reading[edit]

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