litany of reasons
- noun
- Informal
:
litany de razones
- He presented a litany of reasons for his decision to resign from the committee, making it clear that he had thought deeply about the matter.
Examples
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If I had to sit down and write this to be published on The Wise Guise, it would have never been written for a litany of reasons.
Blog text (23) -
Another letter published in the letters-to-the-editor section of the Indian Express gave a litany of reasons for calling the Emergency a "dictatorship":
Academic text (2017) -
I could post a litany of reasons why, in good conscience, I could not cast my vote for Barack Obama again, but here are just three of them:
Blog text (29) -
During the meeting, she shared a litany of reasons why the project should be postponed until further research was completed.
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The article provided a litany of reasons against the proposal, citing concerns from various stakeholders in the community.
Synonyms
79
6.0
A set of reasons that explains a decision or action
24
7.7
A long list of complaints or problems
19
4.3
A long written set of things or tasks, often boring
Many different reasons for something
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'litany' (an extended, repetitive catalogue) with 'reasons' — the phrase simply denotes a long, often repetitive list of reasons. Although 'litany' is somewhat formal, the compositional pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would understand it.
Etymology
Litany of reasons comes from church language where a litany was a long list of repeated 'prayers'. So a litany of reasons paints the image of a long, often repeated list of 'complaints' or 'excuses', which is why it means a long, repetitive list of reasons today.