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Glite Dictionary
🎶 A sung reply 🔁 Serving as a reply
responsory

responsory

1 9.9
A short chant sung or said as a response during a religious service
  • noun
  • /rɪˈspɒnsəri/
  • Specialized
: responsorio
  • The responsory recited after the Gospel reading brought all the worshippers together in prayer.

Examples

  • They prayed the penitential psalms and the responsory for confessors, and then processed, still barefoot, in albs.

    Academic text (2018)

  • During the service, the choir sang a beautiful responsory that echoed through the church.

  • Each Sunday, the congregation eagerly awaited the responsory that followed the reading.

Synonyms

response
vsresponsory
1 6.3

Words people say or sing back after a priest speaks

is a chant or verse used in liturgy to answer spoken or sung parts

Surface Forms

responsory singular
responsories plural

Morphology

responsory = respond (opaque) = respond + ory

The suffix '-ory' typically forms adjectives, but here it forms a noun with a specialized meaning in religious context.

Etymology

Responsory comes from the Latin root respondere, which means 'to answer', and it shares the same root as respond and response. A responsory was originally a short chant sung as an answer during a church service, so the name shows it is something sung in reply.