Litany

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Litany \Lit"a*ny\ (l[i^]t"[.a]*n[y^]), n.; pl. {Litanies}
     (l[i^]t"[.a]*n[i^]z). [OE. letanie, OF. letanie, F. litanie,
     L. litania, Gr. litanei`a, fr. litaney`ein to pray, akin to
     li`tesqai, li`ssesqai, to pray, lith` prayer.]
     A solemn form of supplication in the public worship of
     various churches, in which the clergy and congregation join,


     the former leading and the latter responding in alternate
     sentences. It is usually of a penitential character.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Supplications . . . for the appeasing of God's wrath
           were of the Greek church termed litanies, and rogations
           of the Latin.                            --Hooker.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  litany
       n 1: any long and tedious address or recital; "the patient
            recited a litany of complaints"; "a litany of failures"
       2: a prayer consisting of a series of invocations by the priest
          with responses from the congregation

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  92 Moby Thesaurus words for "litany":
     Angelus, Ave, Ave Maria, Hail Mary, Kyrie Eleison, Paternoster,
     Sefer Torah, Torah, Torah scroll, Virginal, agape, aid prayer,
     appeal, asperges, aspersion, auricular confession, bar mitzvah,
     bas mitzvah, beadroll, beads, beseechment, bidding prayer,
     breviary, canon, catalogue, cataloguing, celebration, chaplet,
     church book, circumcision, collect, communion, confession,
     confirmation, contemplation, devotions, entreaty, enumeration,
     euchologion, euchology, farse, formulary, grace, high celebration,
     impetration, imploration, incense, intercession, inventory,
     inventorying, invocation, invocation of saints, kiss of peace,
     lectionary, lesser litany, list, listing, love feast, lustration,
     machzor, manual, meditation, missal, obsecration, obtestation,
     ordinal, orison, pax, petition, pontifical, prayer, prayer book,
     prayer wheel, processional, recital, recitation,
     reciting the rosary, ritual, rituale, rogation, rosary, rubric,
     service book, siddur, silent prayer, suit, supplication,
     telling of beads, thanks, thanksgiving, the confessional,
     the confessionary