doxology

From Medieval Latin doxologia, from Ancient Greek δοξολογία (doxología, “a praising”), from δοξολόγος (doxológos, “giving or uttering praise”), from δόξα (dóxa, “glory, honor, repute”), from δοκέω (dokéō, “to think, expect”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɒkˈsɒlədʒi/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /dɑkˈsɑləd͡ʒi/

• Audio (US):

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doxology (plural doxologies)

1. An expression of praise to God, especially a short hymn sung as part of a Christian worship service.
   • 1781, Edward Gibbon, chapter XXI, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume II, London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC:

     The doxology or sacred hymn, which celebrates the glory of the Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative, particle.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 89, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs’ teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure.

• “doxology”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “doxology”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “doxology”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.