Dictionary

Miserere en · PROPN

Pronunciation

• /mɪzəˈɹɛəɹi/

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin miserēre (“have pity”), the first word of the psalm in that language.

Meanings

1. The 51st Psalm (50th in the older Greek and Latin numbering), beginning “Have mercy upon me, O God …” in the King James Version; sometimes set to music.
   • Psalm 50, the “Miserere,” was linked to the Passion of Christ by a peculiar story from the thirteenth century known as the “rood legend,” a popular history concerning the wood of the Cross. According to that legend, David had composed the “Miserere” as penance for his sins under the very tree that provided the wood for the Holy Cross. 2008, Lorenzo Candelaria, The Rosary Cantoral: Ritual and Social Design in a Chantbook from Early Renaissance Toledo, →ISBN, page 75:
   • One of the most impressive ceremonies of Holy Week is the chanting of the Miserere. 1845, J. T. Headley, Letters from Italy, page 130:
   • When someone did want to designate a short interval, the usual phrasing drew on religious vocabulary, calling up the duration of common prayers: the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Miserere. 2004, Joyce E. Salisbury, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Daily Life: 15th and 16th Centuries, →ISBN, page 132:

Forms