Crossword clues for sackcloth
sackcloth
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Sackcloth \Sack"cloth`\ (?; 115), n. Linen or cotton cloth such as sacks are made of; coarse cloth; anciently, a cloth or garment worn in mourning, distress, mortification, or penitence.
Gird you with sackcloth, and mourn before Abner.
--2
Sam. iii. 31.
Thus with sackcloth I invest my woe.
--Sandys.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. 1 A coarse hessian style of cloth used to make sacks. 2 (Usually paired with 'ashes'), garments worn as an act of penance. Now often used figuratively.
WordNet
n. a garment made of coarse sacking; formerly worn as an indication of remorse
a coarse cloth resembling sacking
Wikipedia
Sackcloth ( Hebrew שַׂק saḳ) is a term originally denoting a coarsely woven fabric, usually made of goat's hair. It later came to mean also a garment made from such cloth, which was chiefly worn as a token of mourning by the Israelites. It was furthermore a sign of submission (I Kings xx. 30 et seq.), and was occasionally worn by the Prophets.
The Jewish Encyclopedia says the Old Testament gives no exact description of the garment, so its shape must be a matter of conjecture. According to Adolf Kamphausen, the saḳ was like a corn-bag with an opening for the head, and another for each arm, an opening being made in the garment from top to bottom. Karl Grüneisen ("Ahnenkultus," p. 80) thought the saḳ resembled the hairy mantle used by the Bedouins. Friedrich Schwally (in Stade's "Zeitschrift," xi. 174) concludes that it originally was simply the loin-cloth, which is an entirely different conception from that of Kamphausen or of Grüneisen. Schwally bases his opinion on the fact that the word "ḥagar" חָגַר (to gird) is used in describing the mode of putting on the garment (see Josh. i. 8; Isa. iii. 24, xv. 8, xxii. 12; Jer. vi. 26, xlix. 3). One fastens the saḳ around the hips ("sim be-motnayim," Gen. xxxvii. 34; "he'elah 'al motnayim," Amos viii. 10), while, in describing the doffing of the saḳ, the words "pitteaḥ me-'al motnayim" are used (Isa. xx. 2). According to I Kings xxi. 37 and II Kings vi. 30, it was worn next the skin.
Schwally assumes that in prehistoric times the loin-cloth was the usual and sole garment worn by the Israelites. In historic times it came to be worn for religious purposes only, on extraordinary occasions, or at mourning ceremonies. It is natural that, under certain circumstances, the Prophets also should have worn the saḳ, as in the case of Isaiah, who wore nothing else, and was commanded by God to don it (Isa. xx. 2). Old traditions easily assume a holy character. Thus Schwally points to the circumstance that the Moslem pilgrim, as soon as he puts his foot on Ḥaram, the holy soil, takes off all the clothes he is wearing, and dons the iḥram.
Usage examples of "sackcloth".
Humbled by a public confession, emaciated by fasting and clothed in sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at the door of the assembly, imploring with tears the pardon of his offences, and soliciting the prayers of the faithful.
He snatched her fine white muslin carriage dress from the clothespress and tossed it onto the bed as if it were made of sackcloth.
I passed completely empty canvases on easels, canvases poked from behind in a few places by pegs, so that the sheetlike surfaces were broken into geometric shapes, and I passed gray-brown-green sackcloth forms in frames, forms whose material the eye could recognize only very close up -- shreds of netting stuck under mastic or glue, iron fillings, rubber shells -- but at the next work I stopped.
And if thou canst find no sackcloth, then thou shalt have a double portion of ashes, ye knaves, and so I promise you.
They spread the cousin's sackcloth on the grass, and put the stores of the alforjas into requisition, and all three sitting down lovingly and sociably, they made a luncheon and a supper of it all in one.
Doubled up in this manner, wrapped in brown sackcloth, her long, lank grey hair falling over her face down to her feet, she presented at first sight a strange figure standing out from the dark ground of the cell, a sort of dun triangle which the ray entering at the window showed like one of those spectres seen in dreams, half shadow and half light, pale, motionless, gloomy, cowering upon a grave or before the grating of a dungeon.
The boundary was trod by the bishop and his clergy, barefoot, in sackcloth and ashes.
The prayers that did begin then, and the lamentations in sackcloth and ashes, and the holy processions, none of these have ceased nor night nor day.
While he groaned and prayed in sackcloth and ashes, his brother, the eunuch John, smiled at his remorse, and enjoyed the harvest of a crime of which himself was the secret and most guilty author.
He had not actually been indulging in self-pity, or - the notion amused him - wearing mental sackcloth and ashes.
I didn't know that that was what one meant by sackcloth and ashes--do please get up, father.
And a hermit's got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and --”.
Then, in sleeveless sackcloths once again, the three infamous operatives regrouped and climbed aboard the mecha that would deliver them back to the SDF-1 and its world of delights.
He regarded the three couched men in sackcloths for a moment, then began to review what they'd told him.
Grouped together on the tabletop and clothed in the only suitable garments available-sleeveless sackcloths cinched at the waist by rough cords-were the three now "micronized" operatives, Rico, Konda, and Bron.