adessenarian means A believer in the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist, but not by transubstantiation; Chiefly applied to certain followers of Martin Luther. It carries an Arena rating of 1320, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, adessenarian ranks #274 of 17,151 for The Improbable, #344 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #574 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,182 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
Why “adessenarian” is a great word
An adessenarian is one who believes in the real, corporeal presence of Christ in the Eucharist without subscribing to the doctrine of transubstantiation. The term, coined in 1847 by John Mason Neale, derives from Latin *adesse* ('to be present'), from *ad-* ('to, at') + *esse* ('to be'), combined with the English suffix *-arian* ('one who believes in or advocates for'). Unlike a transubstantiationist, who holds the elements are transformed in substance, or a sacramentarian, who may deny a physical presence altogether, the adessenarian affirms a mysterious, spatial coexistence: the weight of a promise held in a wafer's thinness, the taste of both grape and grace on the tongue, the quiet insistence that a thing can be more than itself without ceasing to be what it is—a doctrine of proximity felt in the mouth, not parsed in the mind.
Etymology
From Latin adesse (“to be present”); ad + esse (“to be”).
noun
- A believer in the real presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist, but not by transubstantiation; Chiefly applied to certain followers of Martin Luther.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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