The Collaborative International Dictionary
Martyrology \Mar`tyr*ol"o*gy\, n.; pl. -gies. [Martyr +
-logy.]
A history or account of martyrs; a register of martyrs.
--Bp.
Stillingfleet.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1590s, a native formation from martyr (n.) + -ology, or else from Church Latin martyrologium, from Ecclesiastical Greek martyrologicon.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context Roman Catholicism English) A catalogue or list of martyrs (or, more precisely, of saints), arranged in the order of their anniversaries. 2 (context Judaism English) The story of the deaths of several famous Rabbis (including Rabbi Akiva) by Romans, read both on Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av.
Wikipedia
A martyrology is a catalogue or list of martyrs and other saints and beati arranged in the calendar order of their anniversaries or feasts. Local martyrologies record exclusively the custom of a particular Church. Local lists were enriched by names borrowed from neighbouring churches. Consolidation occurred, by the combination of several local martyrologies, with or without borrowings from literary sources.
This is the now accepted meaning in the Latin Church. In the Orthodox Church, the nearest equivalent to the martyrology is the Synaxarion and the longer Menologion. As regards form, one should distinguish between simple martyrologies that simply enumerate names, and historical martyrologies, which also include stories or biographical details; for the latter, the term passionary is also used.
Usage examples of "martyrology".
Guy Patin, Dean of the Faculty of Paris, Professor at the Royal College, Author of the Antimonial Martyrology, a wit and a man of sense and learning, who died almost two hundred years ago, had come to the same conclusion, though the chemists of his time boasted of their remedies.
This man, worthy of the primitive Church, which exists no longer except in the pictures of the sixteenth century and in the pages of Martyrology, was stamped with the die of the human greatness which most nearly approaches the divine greatness through Conviction,--that indefinable something which embellishes the commonest form, gilds with glowing tints the faces of men vowed to any worship, no matter what, and brings into the face of a woman glorified by a noble love a sort of light.