Word.ws English Dictionary

blacke saunts

blacke saunts is the obsolete form of black sanctus.

Meaning of black sanctus

Noun

black sanctus (plural black sanctuses)

  1. (archaic) A profane or blasphemous parody of a hymn.
    • I knewe I would make him soone change his note, / I will make him sing the blacke sanctus, I holde him a grote.1578, Thomas Lupton, A moral and pitieful comedie, intituled, All for money […], folio 8ʳ
  2. (archaic, figuratively) Harsh words, especially profanities, or other dissonant noises; a cacophony.
    • As plesaunt to the ere as the blacke sanctus / Of a sad sorte vpon a mery pyn.1533, Robert Saltwood, A comparyson bytwene. iiij. byrdes, the larke, the nyghtyngale, ye thrusshe & the cuko, for theyr syngynge who shuld be chauntoure of the quere, folio 14ᵛ

Questions about blacke saunts

What is blacke saunts the obsolete form of?
Blacke saunts is the obsolete form of black sanctus.

Words near blacke saunts in the dictionary

  1. Blackdyke
  2. blacke
  3. blacke sanctus
  4. blacke santis
  5. blacke santus
  6. blacke saunts
  7. blacke-saint
  8. blacked
  9. blacked in
  10. blacked out
  11. blacked up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blacke saunts (page history and authors); black sanctus (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: “blacke saunts.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blacke_saunts. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.