agapetae means women of the early Christian church who cohabited in a state of "spiritual love" with clergy or laymen who had vowed chastity. It carries an Arena rating of 1336, earned across 91 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, agapetae ranks #801 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #2,219 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,294 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,706 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
Why “agapetae” is a great word
AGAPETAE — [Noun] Women in the early Christian church who entered chaste, spiritual domestic unions with clergy or laymen bound by vows of chastity. From Late Greek agapētai, plural of agapētē ('beloved one'), from agapē ('love, charity') + -tēs (agent suffix). Unlike subintroductae (which denotes women 'brought in secretly,' implying impropriety) or concubine (which implies a recognized, often sexual liaison), an agapetē was defined by a professed ideal of sacred companionship. It was the shared bowl of lentils on a bare table, the soft murmur of vespers in a lamplit room, the careful distance maintained in a narrow bed—a fragile architecture of devotion, forever suspect for the very purity it claimed.
Etymology
Eponym from Agape + -tae
noun
- Women of the early Christian church who cohabited in a state of "spiritual love" with clergy or laymen who had vowed chastity.e.g.“It describes the Agapetae as virgins who consecrated themselves to God with a vow of chastity and associated with laymen who like themselves had taken a vow of chastity.” — 2007, Alvin Boyd Kuhn, Who Is This King of Glory?:, →ISBN, page 175:
- Monks or clergy who cohabited with virgins and widows of the church.
- A 4th century Spanish sect founded by Agape and her husband Elpidius that rejected the institution of marriage and was deemed heretical for its perceived hedonism. Considered also to be a forerunner of Priscillianism.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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