dormition
Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- noun The process of falling asleep.
- noun The process of death or the actual death itself.
- noun The death and assumption into heaven of the Virgin Mary.
Examples
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In the eighth century, for example, John Damascene, establishing a direct relationship between the 'dormition' of Mary and the death of Jesus, explicitly affirms the truth of her bodily assumption.
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Mary asked that the Twelve Apostles be brought to her, then fell into a deep sleep, the dormition, and died peacefully.
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It is a position anciently known, and modern experience hath allowed it for a sad truth, that absence and time, -- like cold weather, and an unnatural dormition -- will blast and wear out of memory the most endearing obligations; and hence it was that some politicians in love have looked upon the former of these two as a main remedy against the fondness of that passion.
Note
The word 'dormition' comes from a Latin word meaning "to sleep".
