Houseled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Gave the sacrament of Holy Communion to a person, especially someone who was dying
2. Administered the Eucharist to a believer, typically at the approach of death, in older Christian usage
3. Offered the consecrated bread and wine of communion to a dying person as a final rite

Etymology: Housel is an Old English word for the Eucharist, the sacrament of communion, and it has a long, slightly odd afterlife. Its root, Old English "hūsl," meant a sacrifice or offering, and it passed into Middle English with its religious sense intact. The verb "houseled," from Middle English "houselen" and Old English "hūslian," meant to administer the sacrament to someone, so that to be houseled was to receive communion. The word's roots reach back to Proto-Germanic "*hunslą," meaning "sacrifice," which belongs to a family that includes Gothic "hunsl" and Icelandic "húsl." Those ancient forms share a link to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "holy," which is also behind the Slavic "svętъ." By the nineteenth century, "housel" was largely a deliberately archaic term, chosen by writers who wanted an old-fashioned religious flavour. The verb survived in occasional use into that century, so "houseled" is now mostly found in older texts and in writing that imitates them.

Synonyms: administer communion, give the Eucharist, communicate