reredos
/ˈɹiɹɪdɒs//ˈɹiə.dɒs/
reredos noun: a screen or decoration behind the altar in a church, usually depicting religious iconography or images, akin to the iconostasis of the Eastern Churches.
Noun
reredos (plural reredoses)
- A screen or decoration behind the altar in a church, usually depicting religious iconography or images, akin to the iconostasis of the Eastern Churches.
- Near-synonym: retable (often synonymous)
- A bad reredos will ruin the best church ever designed; and, although a good reredos cannot convert a bad church into a good one, it may do much to lessen the offensiveness of its badness.1871, The Sacristy: A Quarterly Review of Ecclesiastical Art and Literature, volume 1, London: John Hodges, page 246
- Synonyms:
- retable
- The back of an open fire-hearth, in medieval halls and in some later architecture inspired by them.
Examples of reredos in a sentence
- Confusion has reigned in scholarly interpretation, however, because the dark-colored leaves have shown through the succeeding coats of paint across the reredos, interfering with the later scenes.1998, Paul V. M. Flesher, “Rereading the Reredos: David, Orpheus, and Messianism in the Dura Europa Syngogue”, in Dān Ûrman, Paul Virgil...
- There seem to be no remains of wooden reredoses of the fourteenth century, though there are a number of examples in stone.2007, F. E. Howard, English Church Woodwork, page 137:
Synonyms of reredos
Forms of reredos
| plural | reredoses |
|---|---|
| alternative form | raredos |
| alternative form | reredosse |
Origin of reredos
From Middle English reredos, from Anglo-Norman reredos, areredos; equivalent to rere (“rear”) + French dos (“back”).
Questions about reredos
- What does reredos mean?
- Reredos means a screen or decoration behind the altar in a church, usually depicting religious iconography or images, akin to the iconostasis of the Eastern Churches.
- How do you use reredos in a sentence?
- Confusion has reigned in scholarly interpretation, however, because the dark-colored leaves have shown through the succeeding coats of paint across the reredos, interfering with the later scenes.
- What part of speech is reredos?
- Reredos is a noun.
- How do you pronounce reredos?
- Reredos is pronounced /ˈɹiə.dɒs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of reredos?
- The plural of reredos is reredoses.
Words near reredos in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: reredos (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-reredos.wav.
Cite this entry: “reredos.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reredos. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.