black sanctus

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Compound of black +‎ sanctus.

Noun

black sanctus (plural black sanctuses) (archaic)

  1. A profane or blasphemous parody of a hymn.
    • 1578, Thomas Lupton, A moral and pitieful comedie, intituled, All for money , folio 8r:
      I knewe I would make him soone change his note, / I will make him sing the blacke sanctus, I holde him a grote.
    • 1861, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, “Adolfus, Duke of Guelders”, in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, volume 5, page 14:
      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.
  2. (figuratively) Harsh words, especially profanities, or other dissonant noises; a cacophony.
    • 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:
      As plesaunt to the ere as the blacke sanctus / Of a sad sorte vpon a mery pyn.