Crossword clues for prostration
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Prostration \Pros*tra"tion\, n. [L. prostratio: cf. F. prostration.]
The act of prostrating, throwing down, or laying fiat; as, the prostration of the body.
-
The act of falling down, or of bowing in humility or adoration; primarily, the act of falling on the face, but usually applied to kneeling or bowing in reverence and worship.
A greater prostration of reason than of body.
--Shak. The condition of being prostrate; great depression; lowness; dejection; as, a postration of spirits. ``A sudden prostration of strength.''
--Arbuthnot.-
(Med.) A latent, not an exhausted, state of the vital energies; great oppression of natural strength and vigor.
Note: Prostration, in its medical use, is analogous to the state of a spring lying under such a weight that it is incapable of action; while exhaustion is analogous to the state of a spring deprived of its elastic powers. The word, however, is often used to denote any great depression of the vital powers.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1400, "action of prostrating oneself," from Old French prostracion (14c.) or directly from Late Latin prostrationem (nominative prostratio), noun of action from past participle stem of prosternere (see prostrate (v.)); or else a native formation from prostrate (v.). Meaning "weakness, exhaustion, dejection" is from 1650s.
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act or condition of prostrate (lying flat) oneself, as a sign of humility. 2 A part of the ordination of Catholic and Orthodox priests. 3 Being laid face down (prone). 4 The condition of being prostrated, as from heat. 5 A reverential bow performed in Middle Eastern cultures.
WordNet
n. a condition marked by dizziness and nausea and weakness caused by depletion of body fluids and electrolytes [syn: heat exhaustion, heat prostration]
abject submission; the emotional equivalent of prostrating your body
the act of assuming a prostrate position
Wikipedia
Prostration is the placement of the body in a reverentially or submissively prone position as a gesture. Typically prostration is distinguished from the lesser acts of bowing or kneeling by involving a part of the body above the knee touching the ground, especially the hands. Major world religions employ prostration as an act of submissiveness or worship to a supreme being or other worshiped entities (i.e. God or the gods), as in the sajdah of the Islamic prayer, salat, or to show reverence to persons or other elements of the religion. In various cultures and traditions, prostrations are similarly used to show respect to rulers, civil authorities and social elders or superiors, as in the Chinese kowtow or Ancient Persian proskynesis. The act has often traditionally been an important part of religious, civil and traditional rituals and ceremonies, and remains in use in many cultures.
A prostration (Pali: panipāta, Skt.: namas-kara, Ch.: li-pai, Jp.: raihai) is a gesture used in Buddhist practice to show reverence to the Triple Gem (comprising the Buddha, his teachings, and the spiritual community) and other objects of veneration.
Among Buddhists prostration is believed to be beneficial for practitioners for several reasons, including:
- an experience of giving or veneration
- an act to purify defilements, especially conceit
- a preparatory act for meditation
- an act that accumulates merit (see karma)
In contemporary Western Buddhism, some teachers use prostrations as a practice unto itself, while other teachers relegate prostrations to customary liturgical ritual, ancillary to meditation.
Prostrations may also be subsumed within sadhana repetitions of various vinyasa forms of yogic discipline, such as Trul Khor, e.g. Importantly, vinyasa forms were directly influenced from Buddhist 'impermanence' ( anitya) as was the language of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras informed by Buddhist discourse.
Usage examples of "prostration".
Pearse mentions a woman of thirty-six who had suffered menorrhagia for ten days, and was in a state of great prostration and suffering from strong colicky pains.
The Froments had even prevailed on Morange to be of the party with Reine, in their desire to draw him for a day, at any rate, from the dolorous prostration in which he lived.
Fever, resulting from local inflammation, does not produce muscular prostration, and the patient seldom or never assumes the supine position.
One day when I was reproaching him for his unavailing searches, and deploring the prostration of mind that followed them, he looked at me, and, smiling bitterly, opened a volume relating to the History of the City of Rome.
Ionian, Aeolian, and Dorian Greek cities and seaports of Asia Province made absolutely sure they treated this eastern potentate with all the obsequious prostrations his sort desired.
These corpulent warriors, who at Calais shortly before had run till overtaken by nervous prostration and general debility, now wore more millinery and breastpins and slashed velvet and satin facings and tinsel than the most successful and highly painted and decorated courtesans of that period.
In this latitude there are persons who, during summer or early fall, are invariably attacked with acute congestion or inflammation of the upper air-passages, giving rise to sneezing, watery discharges from the nose and eyes, difficult respiration, fever, and general prostration.
If there be great prostration, with cold extremities, the carbonate of ammonia should be administered, in doses of from one to two grains, every second hour, in gum arabic mucilage.
The disease is accompanied with much nervous prostration, and is distinguished by severe pains in the abdomen of a griping nature, followed by frequent scanty and bloody stools, and much straining.
The symptoms were prostration, sleeplessness, exhaustion, over-fatigue from mental trouble, overstudy and anxiety, indigestion, dyspepsia, constipation, headache, inability to concentrate the mind, general lassitude, melancholia, backache and pains from the top of my head to the sole of my feet.
And on the floor before Belchy, motionless as if in devout prostration, Virod lay on his face.
When Amanda had recovered to a certain extent from her attack of nervous prostration Egbert took her to the Nile Valley to recuperate.
Saric shook off astunned stillness ant hastened to rouse the signal runnersoutside the tent from their abject prostration.
He had been brought up on a diet of caviar and bell-boys' legs in half the capitals of Europe, and it was pure luck that his mother had nervous prostration and had to delegate his education to less tender, less biassed hands.
In the view of the majority, the calm that has descended upon our Continent must be ascribed partly to the general prostration following the bloodlettings of the terrible wars, but far more to the fact that the Occident has ceased to be the focal point of world history and the arena in which claims to hegemony are fought out.