Word.ws English Dictionary

ad orientem

ad orientem adverb: facing liturgical east, that is, in the same direction as (and thus, away from) the congregation. Also the ellipsis of ad orientem worship or ad orientem posture.

Adverb

ad orientem (not comparable)

  1. Facing liturgical east, that is, in the same direction as (and thus, away from) the congregation.

Adjective

ad orientem (not comparable)

  1. Describing worship facing liturgical east.
    • For that reason, I have restored the venerable ad orientem position when I celebrate Mass at the Cathedral.2009 September, Edward J. Slattery, “From the bishop: Ad orientem”, in Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, archived from the original on 10 Feb 2012, page 3
    • It was catechism by incense, rood screens, gorgeous vestments and ad orientem Masses chanted from high altars that scrape the heavens.2019 August 15, Michael Rennier, “Liturgy wars? Younger Catholics just want reverence”, in Catholic Herald

Also used as

ad orientem is also the ellipsis of ad orientem worship or ad orientem posture.

Origin of ad orientem

Unadapted borrowing from Latin ad orientem (literally “to the east”).

Questions about ad orientem

What does ad orientem mean?
Ad orientem means facing liturgical east, that is, in the same direction as (and thus, away from) the congregation.
What part of speech is ad orientem?
Ad orientem can be an adverb or an adjective.

Words near ad orientem in the dictionary

  1. ad loc.
  2. ad modum
  3. ad modum Donders
  4. ad nauseam
  5. ad nauseum
  6. ad orientem
  7. ad out
  8. ad particle
  9. ad particles
  10. ad personam
  11. ad quod damnum

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ad orientem (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “ad orientem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ad_orientem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.