oratory (or at or i)

and n. [ I. a. = F. ora toire = Sp. Pg. It. oratorio, II. n. 1. The art of an orator; the art of speaking well, or of speaking according to the rules of rhetoric, in order to please or persuade; the art of public speaking. The three principal branches of this art are deliberative , epidic tic , and judicial oratory . See epidictic.-2. Exercise of eloquence; eloquent language; eloquence: as, all his oratory was spent in vain. IMG:content-1789.png:[blocks in formation] 3t. Prayer; supplication; the act of beseeching or petitioning. The prettie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dammes comfort. Sir P. Sidney, Arcadia, i. 4. Pl. oratories (-riz). A place for prayer or worship. Specifically - (a) In the early church, a place of prayer; especially, a small separate building, usually a memoria or martyry, at some distance from any city or church, used for private prayer, but not for celebration of the sacraments or congregational worship. (b) Any small chapel for religious service attached to a house, church, college, monastery, etc. The canon law, in the Roman Catholic Church, determines the conditions under which ma may be said in an oratory, which is primarily for prayer only. He estward hath upon the gate above... Don make an auter and an or a to rye . Chaucer , Knight's Tale, 1. 1047. Every one of the 10 chapels, or oratories , had some Saints in them. Evelyn, Diary, Nov. 12, 1643. And after war des she made there her Or a to rye , and vsed to sey her deuocions and prayers moste commenly in the same place. Sir R. Guylforde, Pylgrymage, p. 26. Oratory of our Lord Jesus Christ, in France, com- monly called the Oratory , a Roman Catholic congregation of priests founded in Paris in 1611, and overthrown at the time of the revolution. Its rule was followed by the Oratory of the Immaculate Conception, founded in 1852.- Oratory of St. Philip Neri, a Roman Catholic religious order founded at Florence by Filippo Neri in 1575: so named from a chapel he built for it and called an oratory. It is composed of simple priests under no vows. Its chief seat is Italy, but congregations were founded in England in 1847 and 1849 under the leader- ship of former members of the Anglican Church. =Syn. 1 and 2. Oratory, Rhetoric, Elocution, Eloquence. Ora- tory is the art or the act of speaking, or the speech. Rhetoric is the theory of the art of composing discourse in either the spoken or the written form. Elocution is the manner of speaking or the theory of the art of speak- ing (see elocution ); the word is equally applicable to the presentation of one's own or of another's thoughts. Elo- quence is a word which has been made the expre ion for the highest power of speech in producing the effect de- sired, especially if the desire be to move the feelings or the will. Many efforts have been made to define eloquence , some regarding it as a gift and some as an art. "It is a gift of the soul, which makes us masters of the minds and hearts of others." ( La Bruyère .) oratre (or'ā-tres), n. [ orator , one who speaks or prays: see orator . Cf.oratre .] 1. A female orator. I fight not with my tongue: this is my oratrix. Kyd (?), Soliman and Perseda. 2. In law, a female petitioner or female plaintiff in a bill in chancery.