Commemoracioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An act of honoring or keeping alive the memory of a person or event ; a prayer or liturgical reference made in honor of a saint on a feast day
2. The remembrance of a person or occasion through ceremony or observance ; a prayer or mention within a church service that honors a particular saint
3. A ceremony or observance that recalls a person or event from the past ; a liturgical prayer offered in memory of a saint during worship

Etymology: "Commemoracioun" is a Middle English word, spelled in the way Chaucer's contemporaries wrote it, and it means the remembrance or celebration of a saint or event through prayer, ritual, or observance. It came into English from Old French "commemoracion," which itself was borrowed from Latin "commemoratio," a noun built from "commemorare," meaning "to call to mind" or "to mention." The Latin verb combined "com-," an intensive prefix meaning "together" or "thoroughly," with "memorare," "to bring to mind," which comes from "memor," "mindful." So at root, the word is a piece of mental effort: a thorough act of bringing something back into thought. In the medieval Church the sense became specific. A "commemoration" was a secondary feast or prayer added to the liturgy of the day, honouring a saint whose main feast fell elsewhere, so that the lesser figure was still remembered. The Latin word had this liturgical use long before English adopted it, and the Middle English form carried that sense into the vernacular. Modern English "commemoration" keeps the general meaning of marking a past event, though the Church's specific practice has largely faded from ordinary use.