Dictionary

black sanctus en · NOUN

Etymology

Compound of black + sanctus.

Meanings

1. (archaic) A profane or blasphemous parody of a hymn.
   • The surly sinners sing / A horrible black santis, so to cheer / The work in hand. And evermore you hear / A shout of awful joy, as down goes some / Three-hundred-years-old treasure. 1861, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, “Adolfus, Duke of Guelders”, in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, volume 5, page 14:
   • 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:

Forms