Word.ws English Dictionary

sacrament

/ˈsækɹəmənt/

sacrament noun: a sacred act and the attendant ceremony, considered (theology) an outward sign of divine grace, instituted by Jesus Christ.

Noun

sacrament (plural sacraments)

  1. A sacred act and the attendant ceremony, considered (theology) an outward sign of divine grace, instituted by Jesus Christ.
    • Priest: I'm sorry, it's Duncan Dirk Dick. I've just done it. / Father: Well, undo it. / Priest: Undo it? / Father: Yes. / Priest: This is a holy sacrament of the Church, not a bleeding hotel reservation. You can't just undo it.1989 February 10, Stephen Fry et al., “Christening”, in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, season 1, episode 5
  2. The Eucharist.
  3. The consecrated Eucharist (especially the bread).
  4. (broadly) Anything regarded as possessing a sacred character or mysterious significance.
    • God ſometimes ſent a light of fire, and pillar of a cloud, and the brightneſſe of an Angel, and the luſtre of a ſtar, and the ſacrament of a rainbovve to guide his people thorovv their portion of ſorrovvs, and to lead them through troubles to reſt: […]1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, “[XXVIII Sermons Preached at Golden Grove; Being for the Summer Half-year, […].] Sermon IX. The Faith and Patience of the Saints: Or The Righteous Cause Oppressed.”, in...
    • The dots are easy to connect, because they’re so close together, and because they’re the entry and exit wounds inflicted on US society by the subculture whose sacrament is the gun.2022 May 30, Rebecca Solnit, “US mass shootings will continue until the majority can overrule the minority”, in The Guardian
  5. (Ancient-Rome) The oath of allegiance taken by soldiers in Ancient Rome; hence, any sacred ceremony used to impress an obligation; a solemn oath-taking; an oath.
    • I'll take the sacrament on 't.c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Verb

sacrament (third-person singular simple present sacraments, present participle sacramenting, simple past and past participle sacramented)

  1. (transitive) To bind by an oath.

sacrament meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu

sacrament in Tamil

திருவருட்சாதனம்

sacrament in Marathi

sacrament, rite of passage
संस्कार sauskār

sacrament in Urdu

سوگند, تبرک, قسم کھانا, حلف اٹھانا, حلف لینا

sacrament in Telugu

మతకర్మ
More languagesFewer languages
sacrament in Malayalam
കൂദാശ kūdāśa
sacrament in Kannada
ಧಾರ್ಮಿಕ ಕ್ರಿಯೆ, ಪವಿತ್ರ ಕರ್ಮ, ಮತಸಂಸ್ಕಾರ
sacrament in Gujarati
સંસ્કાર sãskār
sacrament in Sanskrit
संस्कार saṃskāra
sacrament in Tagalog
galimbanal, sakramento
sacrament in Arabic
سِرّ sirr
sacrament in Indonesian
sakramen
sacrament in Vietnamese
bí tích

Examples of sacrament in a sentence

  • In West Africa, iboga is most often used as a sacrament of initiation in the Bwiti religion.
  • For Christian examples of condensed symbols, consider the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist and the Chrisms.
  • A plethora of sub-superstitions thus accumulated around the sacrament of the altar.

All 14 example sentences with sacrament

Forms of sacrament

Noun
pluralsacraments
Verb
third-person singular presentsacraments
present participlesacramenting
past participlesacramented
pastsacramented

Plural of sacrament: sacraments

Origin of sacrament

From Middle English sacrament, from Old French sacrement, from Ecclesiastical Latin sacrāmentum (“sacrament”), from Latin sacrō (“hallow, consecrate”), from sacer (“sacred, holy”), originally sum deposited by parties to a suit.

Words formed from sacrament

Phrases with sacrament

Questions about sacrament

What does sacrament mean?
Sacrament means a sacred act and the attendant ceremony, considered (theology) an outward sign of divine grace, instituted by Jesus Christ.
What is sacrament in Tamil?
Sacrament in Tamil is திருவருட்சாதனம். See Sacrament meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is sacrament?
Sacrament can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sacrament?
Sacrament is pronounced /ˈsækɹəmənt/.
What is the plural of sacrament?
The plural of sacrament is sacraments.

Words near sacrament in the dictionary

  1. sacralized
  2. sacralizes
  3. sacralizing
  4. sacrally
  5. sacrals
  6. sacrament
  7. sacrament of reconciliation
  8. Sacrament of the Altar
  9. sacramenta
  10. sacramental
  11. sacramental bread

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sacrament (page history and authors); sacrament (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); संस्कार (Marathi) (page history and authors); sacrament (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); sacrament (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); കൂദാശ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); sacrament (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); સંસ્કાર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); संस्कार (Sanskrit) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sacrament.wav.

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