Rosary

How to spell rosary

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce rosary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rosary mean?

1. nounA string of beads used by Catholics to count a set sequence of prayers, or the prayers themselves.

Rosary in a sentence

• She kept a wooden rosary in her coat pocket.

• The family gathered each evening to say the rosary together.

Where does rosary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin rosarium, which literally meant 'rose garden' or 'a collection of roses', built on rosa, the Latin word for 'rose'. In medieval devotional language a sequence of prayers was poetically imagined as a garland or bouquet of roses offered up, and so rosarium came to name a structured cycle of prayers. English borrowed the word in the fifteenth century, and the meaning settled on both the cycle of prayers itself and the string of beads used to count them. The single 's' and the soft 'z' sound are the spelling trap, since the word sounds nothing like its 'rose' origin would suggest. Knowing that a rosary was once a 'rose garden' is a useful hook for remembering that quiet 'ros' at its heart.

How the word is built

• ros- (from Latin rosa: rose)
• -ary (noun suffix denoting a collection or place)