miracle play
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈmɪrəkl pleɪ/
- Archaic
:
milagro
- During the festival, the community gathered to enjoy a traditional miracle play that illustrated moral lessons.
- medieval miracle play
Examples
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And I'm going to read out loud to you from the medieval miracle plays.
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Each year, after dinner, the Luckscheins went to a marionette theater to see a medieval miracle play of the Nativity.
Fiction book (1999) -
Each year, after dinner, the Luckscheins went to see a medieval miracle play depicting the Nativity.
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In the town square, the actors performed a lively miracle play based on the life of a local saint.
Synonyms
A play about Bible stories performed in a church on holy days, usually sung in Latin
How Religious
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning—a dramatic work about miracles or the lives of saints—is directly derivable from combining 'miracle' (divine event) with 'play' (dramatic work). This noun + play composition is a straightforward, cross-linguistic pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Miracle play comes from the Middle Ages, when towns put on short plays that showed the 'miracles' of 'saints', the wonderful acts people believed they did. Because these plays showed saints' miracles, they were called miracle plays, so today the term means a play about a saint's miraculous deeds.