holy-water sprinkle

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English

WOTD – 4 January 2025

Etymology

PIE word
*kéh₂ilos
A holy-water sprinkle (sense 1) or aspergillum inside an aspersorium or holy water bucket.[n 1]
A holy-water sprinkle (sense 2) or morning star.[n 2]

From Late Middle English haly water spryngelle (“sprinkler for holy water”),[1] from haly water, hōlī water (“water consecrated for use in religious ceremonies”)[1] + sprenkil, springel, spryngelle (“sprinkler for holy water”).[2] By surface analysis, holy water +‎ sprinkle.

Sense 2 (“weapon consisting of a heavy ball set with spikes attached rigidly to a staff”) is from its resemblance to the aspergillum, and apparently from the fact that it scattered blood when it came into contact with a person.[3]

Pronunciation

Noun

holy-water sprinkle (plural holy-water sprinkles)

  2. (Christianity) Synonym of aspergillum (“an implement, in the form of a brush or of a rod with a perforated container, for sprinkling holy water”)
    Synonym: holy water sprinkler
    • , : [Richard Pynson] fynnysshed by Iohan Haukyns, →OCLC, 3rd boke, folio vi, recto; reprinted Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, October 1972, →OCLC:
      All ſubſtantiues endyng in on, hauyng i cõmyng next before on, be of tbe femyne gendre: Excepte Millyón a myllion⸝ eſcorpión a ſcorpyon a ſarpent⸝ ueſpilión a holy water ſpricle⸝ eſtovrgión a ſturgion fiſhe⸝ psalterión a psaltrion […]]
    • 1555, Thomas Haukes [i.e., Thomas Hawkes], witness, “Here Foloweth the Examinations of Thomas Haukes, before Edmund Boner [Edmund Bonner], Byshop of London, Woorde for Woorde, as It was betwene the Byshoppe and Diuers Other and Him, An. 1555. The First Examination of Thomas Haukes.”, in John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, , London: Iohn Day, , published 30 March 1563 (Gregorian calendar), →OCLC, book V, page 1155 :
      […] I stode at the dore: Then sayd the Byshop go to your sermon. Then Doctour Chadseye put the stole a boute his necke, and caried the holy water sprinkle vnto the bishop, who blessed hym, and gaue hym holy water, and so he went to hys sermon.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 13, page 579:
      She alvvay ſmyld, and in her hand did hold / An holy vvater Sprinckle, dipt in deovve, / VVith vvhich ſhe ſprinckled fauours manifold, / On vvhom ſhe liſt, and did great liking ſheovve, […]
    • 1599, Nashe, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, , London: [Thomas Judson and Valentine Simmes] for N L and C B , →OCLC, page 57:
      he other Cardinalles vvith theyr holi-vvater ſprinkles, quencht his foggy fume and euaporating.
    • 1614, Thomas Adams, “The First Sermon. Proverb. 9. 17. 18.”, in The Diuells Banket. Described in Sixe Sermons. , London: Thomas Snodham for Ralph Mab, , →OCLC, page 17:
      VVhy, but holy-vvater is a ſpeciall ranſome to free ſoules out of Purgatorie; and digged out of the fountaine of Scripture. Aſperges me, Domine, Hyſopo: Thou ſhalt ſprinkle me, oh Lord, vvith Hyſope: (for ſo their tranſlation hath it:) the ſenſe of vvhich place, is, ſaith the Romiſh; that the Prieſt muſt daſh the graue vvith a holy-vvater-ſprinkle: for you muſt ſuppoſe, that Dauid vvas dead and buried vvhen he ſpake theſe vvords, and his ſoule in Purgatorie.
    • 1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart] and [Peter Anthony Motteux], “How We Came to the Island of Sandals; and of the Order of Semiquaver Fryars”, in The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. , London: for Richard Baddeley, , →OCLC; republished in volume II, London: Navarre Society , , →OCLC, book the fifth, page 368:
      After that, they went in Procession; two Banners being carried before them, in one of which was the Picture of Virtue, and that of Fortune in the other. The last went before, carried by a Semiquavering-Fryar, at whose Heels was another with the Shadow or Image of Virtue in one Hand, and an Holy-water-sprinkle in the other; I mean of that Holy Mercurial-water, which Ovid describes in his de fastis. And as the preceding Semiquaver rang a Hand-bell, this shak'd the Sprinkle with his Fist.
    • 1859, Alfred Michiels, “Hungary Pillaged—Dragonnades and Force Conversions”, in , transl., Secret History of the Austrian Government and of Its Systematic Persecution of Protestants. , London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC, page 144:
      A religious and martial chief, he [John Gaspard Ampringen] wielded in turn the sabre and the holy water sprinkle, and in every respect suited an ambitious order and a disloyal prince, who spared blood as little as they did holy water.
  4. (by extension, weaponry, historical) A 16th-century weapon consisting of a heavy ball set with spikes attached rigidly to a staff, used mainly in England; a morning star.
    Synonyms: holy water sprinkler, morgenstern
    • 1547 (date written), “Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archeological Institute. November 1, 1867. ”, in The Archaeological Journal, volume XXV, London: Published at the office of the [Royal Archaeological] Institute [of Great Britain and Ireland], published 1868, →OCLC, pages 87–88:
      The weapons, called by Germans "Morgen-stern," and in old English Inventories "holy-water sprinkles," from a certain resemblance to the aspergillum used in churches, are comparatively rare in the armories of this country. […] In the Tower survey of 1547 they are often mentioned; e.g.—'Great holly water sprincles, 118; Holly water sprincles with gonnes in th'ende, 7; Little holly water sprincles, 392; Holly water sprincle with three gonnes in the topp, 1.' The last-named is, without doubt, the club with iron spikes and short fire barrels still exhibited in the tower, with more or less of sensational additamenta relating to Henry VIII.
    • 1854, Samuel Rush Meyrick, “Plate XCII. Holy-water Sprinkles, &c.”, in Engraved Illustrations of Antient Arms and Armour, from the Collection at Goodrich Court, Herefordshire; , volume II, London: Henry G Bohn , , →OCLC:
      To sprinkle the holy water was the cant-phrase for fetching blood, which will account for the appellation, as there is no resemblance between the weapon so called and the aspergillum. Fig. 1.—A holy-water-sprinkle of the fifteenth century. It is a wooden mallet, bound with iron and furnished with iron spikes. […] Fig. 3.—A petty-holy-water-sprinkle to hand at the saddle bow. The whole, except the handle, is of iron.
    • a. 1888 (date written), Richard Jefferies, “An English Deer-park”, in J Jefferies, compiler, Field and Hedgerow: Being the Last Essays of Richard Jefferies , London; New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green, and Co. , published 1889, →OCLC, page 296:
      The horse-chestnuts showed the little green knobs which would soon enlarge and hang all prickly, like the spiked balls of a holy-water sprinkle, such as was once used in the wars.

Translations

Notes

  1. ^ From the collection of the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
  2. ^ From the collection of the museum of the Château de Dinan in Dinan, Brittany, France.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “ springel” under “hōlī water, hōlī-water, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “sprenkil(le, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ See, for example, Frederick W Fairholt (1843 October 1) “Notes on British Costume. Part the Fifth. The Tudors.”, in The Art-Union: A Monthly Journal of the Fine Arts, volume V, number 58, London: J How, , →OCLC, page 257, columns 2–3:
    Fig. 2 is the morning-star, a ball of wood encircled by bands of iron in which spikes are inserted; it is appended to a pole by an iron chain. It was sometimes, jocularly (!) termed a “holy water sprinkler,” the way in which it scattered blood when it touched a vulnerable part suggesting a similarity to the sprinkling of holy water in the Catholic Church. […] The ball was sometimes affixed to the summit of a staff, and thus became a sort of mace, for horsemen, very efficacious in destroying armour.

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