Shrining

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈʃɹaɪnɪŋ/

Definitions

1. The act of dedicating or setting apart something as a shrine, a sacred or holy place
2. Refers to the process of consecrating or establishing a site or object as a place of religious veneration
3. Describes the ceremonial or ritual action of making or marking something as a shrine for worship or reverence

Etymology: "Shrining" is simply the present participle and gerund of "shrine", so its history is that of the noun, with the ordinary "-ing" ending added to make a verb meaning to turn something into a shrine. The noun itself began as a box before it was a holy place. Its Classical Latin ancestor "scrinium" meant a case or chest for books or papers, and Medieval Latin extended it to a reliquary, a container for the bones or belongings of saints. That sense passed into Old English as "scrīn", which referred to a reliquary and even to the ark of the covenant. Middle English then reshaped it into "shryne", and the word came to mean the holy vessel and, eventually, the sacred place where it was kept. Old Norse "skrín" and German "Schrein", which still means a cabinet or case, come from the same stock, so the modern English word preserves the original idea of a container that is more than it appears.