viaticum · noun — the Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death. It carries an Arena rating of 1812, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, viaticum ranks #770 of 17,197 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #1,885 of 17,163 for Most Sublime Words, #2,277 of 17,187 for Most Malleable Words, #2,412 of 17,195 for Most Exacting Words.
viaticum is pronounced /vʌɪˈatɪkəm/.
Why “viaticum” is a great word
The Eucharist as administered to a person who is dying or in danger of death, or, in its older sense, provisions for a journey. From Latin viāticum (“provisions for a journey, traveling money”), neuter of viāticus (“of a road or journey”), from via (“road, way”). First attested in English in the 1560s in the religious sense. Unlike “voyage,” which names the journey itself, or “last rites,” which encompasses the full ceremony, viaticum is the specific sustenance for the passage. It is the crust of bread and the coin for the ferryman, the small flask of wine and oil for the lamp, the final morsel of this world consumed on the threshold of the next—the ancient, practical act of packing a lunch for the longest journey, given a divine and solemn form.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From Latin viāticum (“travelling-money, provisions for a journey”), from viāticus (“of a road or journey”), from via (“road”). Doublet of voyage.
noun
- The Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death.e.g.“[…]from Anglo-Saxon times there had been a deep conviction that to receive the viaticum was a virtual death sentence which would make subsequent recovery impossible.” — 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (nonfiction), Folio Society; republished as Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Eng
- Provisions, money, or other supplies given to someone setting off on a long journey.e.g.“Towards night-fall he entered a town called Sa’adiyah where he alighted and took out somewhat of his viaticum and ate.” — 1885, “Night 20”, in Sir Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (fiction), Kama Shastra Society, translation of أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ [ʔalfu laylatin walaylatun, One
- A portable altar.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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