novena
2
9.9
- noun
- /noʊˈviːnə/
- She decided to start a novena for health and healing after her surgery.
Examples
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And you took the task of handing on the faith so seriously, all those Fridays following the novenas to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.
Fiction book (1997) -
One Saturday afternoon, someone left a pamphlet containing a novena to Saint Jude, patron saint of the impossible, on the dark, rubbed-silken wood of the pew she slips into.
Fiction book (2000) -
I could never make a novena for myself.
Fiction book (1995) -
I heard they were having a novena.
-
And they're having a novena tonight.
-
Gone to novena with Mrs. Grantham.
-
I am going to make a novena so that I am there for that coming-out party.
Fiction book (1997) -
I said prayers and novenas.
Fiction book (1993) -
Only Modesta Gonzalez could claim to have attended as many masses and novenas as Jesus Maria.
Fiction book (1990) -
Jolie-Gray knows none of this when, a full decade later, she comes upon the Saint Jude novena leaflet in the pew.
Fiction book (2000)
Synonyms
42
7.0
A string of beads used to count prayers or the prayers said with them
Surface Forms
Etymology
Novena comes from the Spanish and Latin root novem, which means 'nine'. A novena is a set of prayers said for 'nine days' in a row, so the name simply tells you how long the devotion lasts.