litany
pronunciation
How to pronounce litany in British English:
UK [ˈlɪtəni]
How to pronounce litany in American English:
US [ˈlɪtni]
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- Noun:
- any long and tedious address or recital
Word Origin
- litany (n.)
- c. 1200, from Old French letanie and directly from Medieval Latin letania, Late Latin litania (source also of Spanish letania, Italian litania), from Greek litaneia "litany, an entreating," from lite "prayer, supplication, entreaty," of unknown origin. From notion of monotonous enumeration of petitions in Christian prayer services came generalized sense of "repeated series," early 19c., borrowed from French. For those who know the Greek words, a litany is a series of prayers, a liturgy is a canon of public service; the latter in practice includes prayer, but does not say so. [Fowler]
Example
- 1. The publicity over both stories has prompted a litany of similar confessions .
- 2. And this is on top of the litany of bug fixes and compliance checks that this code base will be providing .
- 3. Now , as the litany of complaints from west virginia shows , they have many more reasons to reject the president .
- 4. The offertory prayers and the litany are much longer than those in the apostolic constitutions .
- 5. A litany of legal wrangles with us tax authorities over tax evasion and bank secrecy further harmed its reputation .