Word of the Day

Thursday, November 13, 2008

obsequies

\OB-sih-kweez\ , noun;

funeral rites or ceremonies

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Quotes:

The controversy that is to mark his obsequies surfaces soon after when two priests object that Pavarotti, a remarried divorcee, should be allowed to lie in state in the cathedral, "the highest symbol of Christianity in Modena".

-- Elizabeth Grice, Pavarotti's last great tragic role, Daily Telegraph, October 25, 2003

Similarly, when Elizabethan audiences watched Laertes protest the brief obsequies given his sister Ophelia, they knew that Catholics were furtively burying their loved ones with the old rites, while publicly holding fake burials with the "maimed rites."

-- Cynthia L. Haven, Papist Plots," review of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare, by Clare Asquith,, New York Times, August 13, 2001

Origin:

c 1385 from Middle English obseque from Middle French, from Late Latin obsequiae, an alteration of Latin obsequia "compliance, dutiful service" and influenced by exsequiae "funeral rites"