ˈmass-priest arch.
[mass n.1]
A priest whose function it is to celebrate mass.
In OE. applied gen. to any priest (Christian or Jewish); in ME. app. used spec. for a secular priest as opposed to a monk, or for one employed to say masses for the souls of the dead. From the 16th c. chiefly a contemptuous designation for a Roman Catholic priest.
| c 893 K. ælfred Oros. (Sweet) 282 Arrius se masse⁓preost. c 1000 ælfric Hom. Pref., Ic ælfric, munuc and mæssepreost. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 23 Þanne he his muchele synnes..bimurneð, and sheweð hem his messe preste. c 1205 Lay. 29872 Vt wenden munekes & þa masse⁓preostes. 13.. Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 2108 Monk, oþer masse⁓prest, oþer any mon elles. 1554 Bradford Let. Wks. (Parker Soc.) I. 391 God is no merchant, as our mass-priests be. 1632 Lithgow Trav. iii. 92 Among the foure Friars, there was but one Masse-Priest. 1686 Evelyn Diary 11 July, The late King's glorious chapell [at Windsor] now seiz'd on by the masse priests. 1902 J. Buchan Watcher by Threshold ii. 109 The family changed its faith, and an Episcopal chaplain took the place of the old mass-priest in the tutoring of the sons. 1922 Joyce Ulysses 379 She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His goodness with masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. |