lustration
(lʌˈstreɪʃən)
[ad. L. lūstrātiōnem, n. of action f. lūstrāre lustrate v.1]
1. The action of lustrating; the performance of an expiatory sacrifice or a purificatory rite (e.g. by washing with water); the purification by religious rites (of a person or place from something).
| 1614 Raleigh Hist. World II. v. vi. §3. 621 A Muster, and ceremonious lustration of the Armie, was wont to be made at certeine times with great solemnitie. 1635 A. Stafford Fem. Glory (1869) 118 The Lustration of houses was yearely usuall with the Romans, in the Moneth of February. 1699 Bentley Phal. 380 The Lustrations of Cities and Countries from Plagues, Earthquakes, Prodigies. 1715 Pope Iliad i. 411 The host to expiate, next the king prepares, With pure lustrations, and with solemn prayers. 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 414 Signatures of the cross, and lustrations by holy water. 1862 Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) VI. l. 183 Enjoining the lustration of the city by solemn sacrifices. 1875 Lightfoot Comm. Col. 171 There were other points of ceremonial observance, in which the Essenes superadded to the law. Of these the most remarkable was their practice of constant lustrations. 1883 Encycl. Brit. XV. 70/1 In Rome..there was a lustration of the fleet before it sailed, and of the army before it marched. |
b. gen. Washing. Chiefly jocular.
| 1825–9 Mrs. Sherwood Lady of Manor III. xix. 82 The little girl..now too evidently bore the symptoms of long neglect, and Mrs. Cicely's plans of lustration were, therefore, the more needful. 1829 J. L. Knapp Jrnl. Naturalist 310 Birds are unceasingly attentive to neatness and lustration of their plumage. 1887 Lowell Old. Eng. Dram. (1892) 78 The other never paid his washer-woman for the lustration of the legendary single shirt without which [etc.]. |
2. fig. Purification, esp. spiritual or moral.
| 1655 [Glapthorne] Lady Mother v. i. in Bullen O. Pl. II. 185 You may live To make a faire lustration for your faults And die a happie Convert. 1684 tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. vi. 179 The..excrementitious matter is separated by this inward lustration from the bloud. 1777 Earl of Chatham Sp. on Addr. 18 Nov., Let them [the prelates] perform a lustration; let them purify..this country, from this sin. 1882 Farrar Early Chr. l. 140 St. Peter's mind is full of the Deluge as a type of the world's lustration. 1887 Lowell Democr. 166 The lustration of the two vulgar Laises by the pure imagination of Don Quixote. |
3. The action of going round a place, viewing, or surveying it; the review (of an army).
| 1614 [see 1]. 1623 Cockeram, Lustration, a viewing, compassing. 1656 Blount Glossogr., Lustration, compassing, viewing or going about on every side. 1752 Young Brothers i. i. (1777) 7 'Tis their great day, supreme of all their year, The fam'd lustration of their martial powers. 1849 Jeffrey in Cockburn Life Jeffrey (1852) I. 405, I have made a last lustration of all my walks and haunts, and taken a long farewell of garden, and terrace, and flowers. |
† 4. A perambulation, inspection, census. Obs.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. vii. xi. 360 How deepely hereby God was defrauded in the time of David,..will easily appeare by the summes of former lustrations. |
5. = lustre n.2 rare—1.
| 1853 F. W. Newman Odes of Horace ii. iv, One whose age runs fast to finish Its eighth lustration. |