matins means Together with lauds, the earliest of the canonical hours; traditionally prayed at sunrise or earlier. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 85 out of 100.
Why this word is great
MATINS — [Noun] The canonical hour of morning prayer in Christian liturgy, traditionally observed at daybreak. From Middle English matyns, from Old French matines, ultimately from Latin mātūtīnus ("of the morning"), from Mātūta, the Roman goddess of dawn. Unlike "lauds," which lifts into psalms of praise as light fully arrives, or "orthros," the Eastern term heavy with incense and prolonged anticipation, matins is the vigil itself, the watch kept in the raw hinge between night and day. It is the scrape of a monk's stool on a stone floor, the solitary bell that fractures the pre-dawn silence, and the specific grey light that seeps through a clerestory window just as the final antiphon is sung—a ritual that finds its meaning in the voluntary embrace of the hour when the world's oldest renewal is still a fragile, whispered question.
noun
- Together with lauds, the earliest of the canonical hours; traditionally prayed at sunrise or earlier.“This chant was sung in many cathedrals both at First Vespers and at Matins for Christmas Day. In Notre Dame and many other churches, however, it was only performed at First Vespers.”
- Morning prayers.“The monk must arise when the matins ring, / The abbot may sleep to their chime; / But the yeoman must start when the bugles sing / ’Tis time, my hearts, ’tis time.”