hostie means the consecrated bread or wafer of the Eucharist, host. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
hostie is pronounced /ˈhəʊsti/.
Why “hostie” is a great word
A consecrated wafer of bread used in the Eucharist, or, informally, a dated term for a female flight attendant. From Middle French *hostie*, from Latin *hostia* ("sacrificial victim"), its informal English use is first attested in 1960. Unlike "wafer," a thin disk of unleavened bread lacking sacramental transformation, or "flight attendant," a professional and gender-neutral designation, "hostie" bridges the sacred and the profane. It is the cool, white disk dissolving on the tongue, the crisp uniform and practiced smile in a pressurized cabin, the vessel of either divine grace or mid-flight coffee—a small, brittle carrier of our oldest longings into the most modern of spaces.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French hostie, from Latin hostia.
noun
- the consecrated bread or wafer of the Eucharist, host.“1694 August 9, James Drummond, 4th Earl of Perth, Letter XII, in 1845, William Jerdan (editor), Letters from James, Earl of Perth, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, &c, to His Sister, Countess of Erroll, and Other Members of His Family, page 40,
This Hostie* is carryed about the streets in procession : and really it is very fine to see the solemnity.”
- An air hostess.“A lovely hostie approached my seat, `Mr. Vautin, just looking at you makes me think we might need a forklift to get you off the plane.'”