Word Finder - solemnity

definition

The quality of being deeply serious and sober or solemn.

example

the solemnity of a funeral

definition

An instance or example of solemn behavior; a rite or ceremony performed with reverence.

definition

A feast day of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of faith such as the Trinity, an event in the life of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or another important saint.

definition

A solemn or formal observance; proceeding according to due form; the formality which is necessary to render a thing done valid.

definition

A celebration or festivity.

The pictures captured the solemnity of this day.

In public he maintained a bearing of rigid solemnity, and was seen to laugh only three times in the course of his life.

To mark the solemnity of the occasion, the patriarch's name was changed to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah.

Humor will break up the solemnity of an occasion, or provide a welcome moment of light relief.

Grant is ill, said she, with mock solemnity.

Scott himself shared Morritt 's view that in aiming for solemnity Raeburn had given him a somewhat stolid air.

With its solemnity and symbolism, a high cross necklace is a beautiful and meaningful piece of jewelry.

She spent the night waiting for the nightmare world to end and dressed the next morning with an undertaker's solemnity.

This month, Bede says, was the same as the mensis paschalis, " when the old festival was observed with the gladness of a new solemnity."

His body was recovered by the Achaeans and buried with great solemnity.

And yet, having regard to the transcendent importance and solemnity of the questions here at issue, such levity is intolerable.

Wherefore, in their company enlist us who keep thy memory with faith, celebrating thy holy solemnity on this day.

This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth.

Unlike the Presbyterian minister, he does not usually add solemnity to the occasion by wearing a shiny lum hat!

Only venues which would not compromise the solemnity of the ceremony can be approved.

English seaside resorts have a strange icy solemnity that you can never quite get out of your system.

Here the silence is effective as it encourages the viewer to focus on their grace and technique, and emphasizes the solemnity of death.

It seems strange to us that they are not stricken dumb by the new and awful solemnity of their position.

In the year 1130 Merton Abbey was first built with stone, the founder himself laid the first stone, with great solemnity.

Your old preceptor repeated, with much solemnity, the speech How far is't called to Fores?

Grant is ill, " said she, with mock solemnity.

I looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was laughing also.

Scott himself shared Morritt's view that in aiming for solemnity Raeburn had given him a somewhat stolid air.

We may observe how even a very primitive people such as the Arunta of Australia behaves with the greatest solemnity at its ceremonies, and professes to be made "glad" and "strong" thereby; whilst of his countrymen, whom he would not trust to pray in private, Plato testifies that in the temples during the sacrificial prayers "they show an intense earnestness and with eager interest talk to the Gods and beseech them" (Laws, 887).

In his Autobiography he alleges that he learned from the Provincial Letters of Pascal " to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity."

He fell ill on his return from Delphi, where he had gone to dedicate a tithe of the spoils, and, probably in 401, died at Sparta, where he was buried with unparalleled solemnity and pomp. Thuc. iii.

After even the finest things in Tannhauser, the Vorspiel to Lohengrin comes as a revelation, with its quiet solemnity and breadth of design, its ethereal purity of tone-colour, and its complete emancipation from earlier operatic forms. The suspense and climax in the first act is so intense, and the whole drama is so well designed, that we must have a very vivid idea of the later Wagner before we can see how far the quality of musical thought still falls short of his ideals.

Many ideas and expressions of the Sicilian have been reproduced by the Roman poet; and the same tone of impassioned solemnity and melancholy seems to have pervaded both works.

He possessed some oratorical ability and adopted a very theatrical style of elocution, "tuning his voice and balancing his hands"; and his addresses were a strange medley of solemnity and buffoonery, of clever wit and the wildest absurdity, of able and original disquisition and the worst artifices of the oratorical charlatan.

On his face, besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an expression of quiet solemnity.

This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity.

Wedding readings can add to the solemnity of an occasion, or provide a welcome moment of light relief.

A reverent silence filled the hall, as tho all felt deeply the solemnity of this day.

A good flow of language, solemnity of manner, and plausible philosophy, carry them away.

For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me.

The solemnity of death would rest upon the people; you could not see a movement or hear a sound.

Unlike the Presbyterian minister, he does not usually add solemnity to the occasion by wearing a shiny lum hat !

Four days after the discovery of the bodies, Darnley was buried in the chapel of Holyrood with secrecy as remarkable as the solemnity with which Rizzio had been interred there less than a year before.

After a great number of formalities and prayers, the pope pronounces the sentence, and indicates eventually the day on which he will proceed to the ceremony of canonization, which takes place with great solemnity in the basilica of St Peter.

The Directions to Servants (first published in 1745) in like manner derive their overpowering comic force from the imperturbable solemnity with which all the misdemeanours that domestics can commit are enjoined upon them as duties.

He enclosed a form of the proclamation, and expressed a hearty " wish that the university would so compose themselves as to perform the solemnity with a reasonable decorum."

His homiletic books, Epistle on Sanctity (Iggereth ha-qodesh) and Law of Man (Torath ha-Adam), which deal respectively with the sanctity of marriage and the solemnity of death, are full of intense spirituality, while at the same time treating of ritual customs - a combination which shows essential Rabbinism at its best.

When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her again, and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.

With due solemnity (super majus altare) they swore to withdraw their allegiance from the king and to make war upon him, unless within a stated time he restored to them their rightful laws and liberties.

Cymbeline, the play he had been reading on the last afternoon, was laid in his coffin, and on the 12th he was publicly buried with great solemnity in Westminster Abbey.

But, as worship became more thoroughly organized, it was invested with increasing solemnity; the freedom of choice was gradually restricted; and inasmuch as lections were regularly taken from the Old Testament, it was only natural that other lections read alongside of them should gradually be placed upon the same footing.

The laws and records of suits were set down in picture-writings, of which some are still to be seen; sentence of death was recorded by drawing a line with an arrow across the portrait of the condemned, and the chronicles describe the barbaric solemnity with which the king passed sentence sitting on a golden and jewelled throne in the divine tribunal, with one hand on an ornamented skull and the golden arrow in the other.

But the spirit, though adjured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools of so many philosophers.

Or, again, we may note the earnestness and solemnity that characterize all their sacred ceremonies.

He had twice sworn, with gratuitous solemnity, to maintain the new constitution; but he was hardly out of Naples before he repudiated his oaths and, in letters addressed to all the sovereigns of Europe, declared his acts to have been null and void.