service book
- noun
- The church provided a service book for the wedding.
Examples
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Do you have a service book for the mass?
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The priest opened the service book to begin the Sunday mass.
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Several different service books are required for special holy days.
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She inherited an old family service book that had been used for generations.
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The priest read from the service book during the ceremony.
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During the ceremony, the service book guided the congregation through the prayers.
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Many churches use a service book to standardize their religious services.
Synonyms
A book of Bible readings arranged for church services through the year
A book that tells the sequence of church services and rites
A book with prayers people say during religious services
A book of prayers and rites a priest uses during Mass and other church services
How Complete
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a book that contains texts/forms for religious ceremonies' is directly and transparently composed from 'service' (a religious ceremony) + 'book' (a bound set of pages), so a learner who knows both words can infer it as 'a book for services.' Noun–noun compounds of this type are common and predictable cross-linguistically, making the expression readily comprehensible at B1.
Etymology
Service book started as a very simple idea: a book used during a church service. Priests read prayers and instructions from it to lead the ceremony, so the name came to mean 'a book with the words and forms for church services'.