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Solemnity   /səlˈɛmnəti/   Listen
noun
Solemnity  n.  (pl. solemnities)  
1.
A rite or ceremony performed with religious reverence; religious or ritual ceremony; as, the solemnity of a funeral, a sacrament. "Great was the cause; our old solemnities From no blind zeal or fond tradition rise, But saved from death, our Argives yearly pay These grateful honors to the god of day."
2.
Ceremony adapted to impress with awe. "The forms and solemnities of the last judgment."
3.
Ceremoniousness; impressiveness; seriousness; grave earnestness; formal dignity; gravity. "With much glory and great solemnity." "The statelines and gravity of the Spaniards shows itself in the solemnity of their language." "These promises were often made with great solemnity and confirmed with an oath."
4.
Hence, affected gravity or seriousness. "Solemnity 's a cover for a sot."
5.
Solemn state or feeling; awe or reverence; also, that which produces such a feeling; as, the solemnity of an audience; the solemnity of Westminster Abbey.
6.
(Law) A solemn or formal observance; proceeding according to due form; the formality which is necessary to render a thing done valid.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Solemnity" Quotes from Famous Books



... rising with due solemnity, he proposed the health of the "worthy president," prefacing his speech with the modest avowal of his inability to do what he still persisted in ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... origin is not easy to trace; Hugo seems to be a corruption of the Cornish word fogou, meaning a cave. Johns, who wrote a very interesting book about the Lizard some sixty years since, said that "of all the caves that I have ever inspected, this wears the most perfect air of mysteriousness and solemnity. At the entrance it is large enough to admit a six-oared boat, but soon contracts to so small a size that a swimmer alone could explore it. Its termination is lost in gloom, but as far as the eye can discriminate ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... the worth and solemnity of what is at stake will be careless as to his progress. ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... Morning: we dined at Grantham, had the annual solemnity (this being the first time the coach passed the road in May), and the coachman and horses being decked with ribbons and flowers, the town music and young people in couples before us; we lodged at Stamford, a scurvy, dear town. 5th May: had other passengers, which, though females, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... her kind lessons and instructions, and Urad, with a decent solemnity, attended both her labours and her teacher, who was so pleased with the fruits which she saw spring forth from the seeds of virtue that she had sown in the breast of her pupil, that she now began to leave her more to herself, and exhorted ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various


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