Crossword clues for genuflection
The Collaborative International Dictionary
genuflection \gen`u*flec"tion\, genuflexion \gen`u*flex"ion\, n.
[F. g['e]nuflexion, fr. LL. genuflexio, fr. L. genu knee +
flexio a bending, fr. flectere, flexum, to bend. See Knee,
Flexible.]
The act of bending the knee, particularly in worship or
reverence.
--Bp. Stillingfleet.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
alt. the act of genuflecting n. the act of genuflecting
WordNet
n. the act of bending the knees in worship or reverence [syn: genuflexion]
Wikipedia
Genuflection (or genuflexion), bending at least one knee to the ground, was from early times a gesture of deep respect for a superior. In 328 BC, Alexander the Great introduced into his court-etiquette some form of genuflection already in use in Persia. In the Byzantine Empire even senators were required to genuflect to the emperor. In medieval Europe, one demonstrated respect for a king or noble by going down on one knee, often remaining there until told to rise. It is traditionally often performed in western cultures by a male making a proposal of marriage. Today, the gesture is common in the Christian religious practices of the Anglican Church, Lutheran Church, Roman Catholic Church, and Western Rite Orthodox Church.
The Latin word genuflectio, from which the English word is derived, originally meant kneeling rather than the rapid dropping to one knee and immediately rising that became customary in Western Europe in the Middle Ages.
Usage examples of "genuflection".
Dionysms the Areopagite, the emperor, graciously recalling the Greek origin of this saint, sent a chorus of Greek priests, and the Franks were entranced not merely by their vestments and painted tapers, but by their dramatic genuflections and the ensemble of bass and treble voices.
Hal had barely time to complete his genuflections and his amens before the Bishop was up and away again, leading him to a smaller shrine off the nave.
He was going to save the country, save the world, in spite of its slavish ingrained genuflection to oversweetened dreck.
You have not learned all that art has to teach you, but you are safer practitioners to-day than were many of those whose names we hardly mention without a genuflection.
The artificial-intelligence cortexes which controlled primary ship functions had been constructed with repetitive redundancies built in, but what if they, too, should suddenly and inexplicably devolve into an irrational demonstration of cybernetic genuflection?
The genuflections with which Eibon and Morghi had been greeted were only an expression of gratitude for the safe return of this beast.
Entering the sanctuary with renewed genuflections, he joined the nipple rings and went about the throttling of the breast roots with lengths of wet cord he had brought in a pail.
And I had heard tales of Brother Paolo Zoppo, who in the forest of Rieti lived as a hermit and boasted of having received directly from the Holy Spirit the revelation that the carnal act was not a sin—so he seduced his victims, whom he called sisters, forcing them to submit to the lash on their naked flesh, making five genuflections on the ground in the form of a cross, before he presented them to God and claimed from them what he called the kiss of peace.