Litargie

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A set order of prescribed words and ceremonies used for public religious worship in a church or congregation
2. The formal, established pattern of rites and prayers that a religious community follows when gathering to worship
3. Ritual forms of communal religious service, fixed in advance and performed according to a traditional rubric

Etymology: Lethargy began as a Greek word for forgetfulness. "Lēthargos" combined "lēthē," the name of the river of oblivion in Greek myth, whose waters made the dead forget their lives, with "argos," meaning idle or without work. A person who was "lēthargos" was drowsy, dull, and seemingly cut off from the world, which is why the Greek and later Latin forms came to describe a state of deep, unnatural sleep. English took the word from Old French, which had already softened the Latin "lethargia" into "letargie." Your spelling "litargie" is an older English variant, with the vowel shifted in the unstressed syllables and the "h" dropped, as happened to many learned words in Middle English. The sense of general sluggishness and apathy developed after the word had been used mainly for the medical condition of stupor.