PONTIFICAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Pontifical

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/pɑntˈɪfəkəl/ Listen

noun

Pontifical n.

A book containing the offices, or formulas, used by a pontiff.

pl. The dress and ornaments of a pontiff. "Dressed in full pontificals."

adjective

Pontifical adj.

Of or pertaining to a pontiff, or high priest; as, pontifical authority; hence, belonging to the pope; papal.

Of or pertaining to the building of bridges. (R.) "Now had they brought the work by wondrous art Pontifical, a ridge of pendent rock Over the vexed abyss."

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Etymology of 'Pontifical'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pontifical" Quotes from Famous Books

... worship, in which my father, who was the high priest, appeared in vestments such as I believe the Jewish priests still wear in their solemn ceremonies, and which were so closely copied from the description of Aaron's sacred pontifical robes that I felt a sense of impropriety in such a representation (purely historical, as it was probably considered, and in no way differing from the costume accepted on the French stage in Racine's ...

— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... and Madame Keroulan had retired to the end of the garden, and only a big bee, brumming overhead, was near. He had arisen with the pontifical air of a man who has a weighty gospel to expound. He encircled with his potent personality the imagination of his listener; the hypnotic quality of his written word was carried leagues farther in ...

— Visionaries • James Huneker

... schoolmen knew about the nature of God. But now men are interested in the beautiful because they miss it so much in the present works of men and because they so passionately desire it; and their speculation has the aim of recovering it. So aesthetics, whatever some artists in their peculiar and pontifical narrowness may say, is of great importance now; they are part of the effort which the modern world is making to exercise its will in the production of works of art, and they are bound, if that effort is successful, to have more and ...

— Progress and History • Various

... following Sunday, the 15th of August, being the Assumption, at twelve o'clock, at the very moment when the Cardinal, dressed in his pontifical garments, was about to proceed to the chapel, he was sent for into the King's closet, ...

— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... doctrines as true, Eck claimed the victory, because he had driven Luther to expressions at variance with those doctrines. On the other hand, Luther had shown that the pontifical claims were without foundation in primitive Christianity or the Holy Scriptures; that the Papacy was not of divine authority or of the essence of the Church; that the Church existed before and beyond the papal hierarchy, ...

— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

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