Pontifical

Quick meaning: Pontifical is an adjective meaning Of or pertaining to a pontiff.

Meaning

Of or pertaining to a pontiff.

More Meanings

1. Pompous, dignified or dogmatic.
2. Splendid; magnificent.
3. Of or pertaining to the pontifices of Ancient Rome.
4. A book containing the offices, or formulas, used by a pontiff.
5. (chiefly poetic) Of or relating to the building or forming of bridges.

Example Sentences

Now had they brought the work by wondrous art / Pontifical, a ridge of pendent rock / Over the vexed abyss.

If the editio princeps was an attempt to create an authoritative version of the pontifical, such was not yet attainable.

Both ordines are related to an ordo in a pontifical in Reims, the Ordo of 1200 (Ordo XIX). The latter was to be consulted again and again, and its formulas were to have a marked effect upon the French ceremony; […]

William Durandus, bishop of Mende in the south of France, compiled a pontifical in three books. William never intended his work to be a universal pontifical, but its clarity of arrangement and quality of substance, along with […]

Word Forms

• pontificals

Synonyms for pontifical

Depending on context, synonyms include portentous, pretentious, grandiloquent, pompous, overblown.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include portentous, pretentious, pompous, grandiloquent, overblown, pope.

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