Unhouseled

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Describing a person who has not received Holy Communion, especially someone who dies without taking the sacrament
2. Lacking the Eucharist, the Christian sacrament of bread and wine, particularly at the point of death
3. Without having taken Holy Communion, a state traditionally considered grave for a believer who is dying

Etymology: "Unhouseled" describes a person who died without having received the Eucharist, the Christian sacrament of communion, which was traditionally regarded as the last rite a dying believer should receive. The word is built from the prefix "un-", meaning "not", attached to "houseled", the past participle form of the older verb "housel," meaning to administer the sacrament. "Housel" itself goes back to Old English "hūsl," a word with roots in the earlier Germanic languages. The prefix "un-" is one of the oldest and most productive parts of English, descended from the same ancient root that gave us Latin "non" and Greek "a-" (negative prefixes). Its Germanic form traveled through Old English and Middle English, where it was attached freely to participles and adjectives to express negation. "Unhouseled" follows this pattern exactly, so its construction is transparent once the two parts are known.

Synonyms: unshriven