deodate means A gift or offering to, or from, God. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “deodate” is a great word
A deodate is a gift or offering made to, or received from, a deity, a sacred transaction whose currency is grace. From Latin Deo ("to God") + datum ("thing given"). Unlike a "donation," a secular transfer between mortals, or a "votive," an object given under the specific contract of a vow, a deodate exists solely within the vertical axis of unsolicited divine reciprocity. It is the unexpected warmth of sunlight breaking through a grief-heavy cloud, the scent of frankincense lingering in stone long after the censer has swung, or the sudden, perfect silence in a chapel that feels less like an absence and more like a presence received—a fragile bridge of tangible and intangible evidence across the infinite chasm between the human and the holy.
Etymology
From Latin Deo (“to God”) (from Deus (“God”)) + datum (“thing given”).
noun
- A gift or offering to, or from, God.“Long it were to reckon up particularly what God was owner of under the Law: for of this sort was all which they spent in legal sacrifices; of this sort their usual oblations and offerings; of this sort tithes and firstfruits; […] of this sort whatsoever their Corban contained, wherein that blessed widow's deodate was laid up.”