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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ceremonious
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Chapel and Sunday-school were to me cruel ceremonious punishments for the freedom of Monday to Saturday ....
▪ Not the most ceremonious release for a fresh faced coin still cutting its teeth.
▪ She picked up her handbag, and he rose from behind his desk to take a relieved and ceremonious farewell.
▪ These are haunting and elegiac poems, in which expressions of sorrow and loss are given ceremonious form.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ceremonious

Ceremonious \Cer`e*mo"ni*ous\, a. [Cf. F. c['e]r['e]monieux, L. Caerimoniosus.]

  1. Consisting of outward forms and rites; ceremonial.

    Note: [In this sense ceremonial is now preferred.]

    The ceremonious part of His worship.
    --South.

  2. According to prescribed or customary rules and forms; devoted to forms and ceremonies; formally respectful; punctilious. ``Ceremonious phrases.''
    --Addison.

    Too ceremonious and traditional.
    --Shak.

    Syn: Formal; precise; exact. See Formal.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ceremonious

1550s, from Middle French cérémonieux or directly from Late Latin caerimoniosus, from Latin caerimonia (see ceremony). Meaning "full of show and ceremony" is from 1610s. Related: Ceremoniously; ceremoniousness.

Wiktionary
ceremonious

a. 1 Fond of ceremony, ritual or strict etiquette; punctilious 2 Characterized by rigid formality

WordNet
ceremonious

adj. rigidly formal or bound by convention; "their ceremonious greetings did not seem heartfelt" [syn: conventional]

Usage examples of "ceremonious".

From the story drawn from the records of the Bohemian law court, it is plain that to make a compact with the Wild Huntsman was a much more gruesome and ceremonious proceeding than that which took place between Faust and the Evil One in the operas of Gounod and Boito.

He is ceremonious, stately, most polite on every occasion to my Lady, and holds her personal attractions in the highest estimation.

The appropriate curtsies, compliments and ceremonious kisses were exchanged.

It had nothing to do with that dumb jug or the ceremonious adherence to strict relationships or her miserably ill-fitting clothes.

I could not help comparing the cordiality of Levi's welcome with the formal and ceremonious reception of Baron Pittoni.

Sixty years before, Marcel, the famous dancing-master, had taught young Casanova how to enter a room with a lowly and ceremonious bow.

Diomed, who was rather ceremonious, had appointed a nomenclator, or appointer of places to each guest.

He took a ceremonious leave of the Crow chieftain, and his vagabond warriors, and according to previous arrangements, consigned to their cherishing friendship and fraternal adoption, their worthy confederate Rose.

The dancing had given place to a floor show which was focusing the breathless attention of the pop-eyed sightseers upon the stage, where two huge, iron- muscled Manchus were putting on a ceremonious broadsword contest.

Such treatment irritated her and it must infuriate Amos beyond endurance, since he was born noble among a ceremonious people.

He watched the difficult movements of the creatures, ruffed and ceremonious as if they were performing an ancient dance, and he admired the representative fidelity of men who dress up as buzzards on Quinquagesima Sunday.