Word.ws English Dictionary

Agnus

Agnus is the ellipsis of Agnus Dei.

Meaning of Agnus Dei

Noun

Agnus Dei (plural Agnus Deis or Agnus Dei)

  1. A liturgical chant recited as part of the Mass, beginning with those words, or the music to which it is set.
  2. A small model, picture, or heraldic representation of a lamb with a cross and sometimes a flag (usually white with a red cross).
  3. A bar of wax imprinted with a similar shape and blessed by the Pope.
    • Matilda continued her incantations; at intervals she took various items from the basket, the nature and name of most of which were unknown to the friar: but among the few which he distinguished, he particularly observed three human fingers, and an agnus dei, which she broke in pieces.1796, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Folio Society, published 1985, page 194

Forms of Agnus

pluralAgnuses

Phrases with Agnus

Questions about Agnus

What is Agnus the ellipsis of?
Agnus is the ellipsis of Agnus Dei.

Words near Agnus in the dictionary

  1. agnotological
  2. agnotologist
  3. agnotologists
  4. agnotology
  5. AGNs
  6. Agnus
  7. agnus castus
  8. agnus castuses
  9. Agnus Dei
  10. Agnus Deis
  11. Agnuses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Agnus (page history and authors); Agnus Dei (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: “Agnus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/agnus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.