rosary: [14] Rosary comes from Latin rosārium ‘rose garden’, a derivative of rosa ‘rose’. It was a common conceit in the Middle Ages to name collections of verse or similar short pieces after bunches of flowers (anthology comes from the Greek word for ‘flower’, and a similar inspiration underlies florilegium, while a 13thcentury volume of the collected works of the Persian poet Sa’di was called the Rose garden).
That was the background against which a collection of Roman Catholic prayers, consisting of Aves, Paternosters, and Glorias, came to be known as a rosary. A string of beads of varying sizes came to be used for counting off how far one has got in saying these prayers (English bead itself comes from a word meaning ‘prayer’), and this too was termed rosary. => rose
rosary (n.)
"rose garden," mid-15c., from Latin rosarium "rose garden," in Medieval Latin also "garland; string of beads; series of prayers," from noun use of neuter of rosarius "of roses," from rosa "rose" (see rose (n.1)).
The sense of "series of prayers" is 1540s, from Middle French rosaire, a figurative use of the word meaning "rose garden," on the notion of a "garden" of prayers. This probably embodies the medieval conceit of comparing collections to bouquets (compare anthology and Medieval Latin hortulus animae "prayerbook," literally "little garden of the soul"). Sense transferred 1590s to the strings of beads used as a memory aid in reciting the rosary.
双语例句
1. Estrada took a rosary from his tunic and ran the beads through the fingers of one hand.
埃斯特拉达从法衣里取出一串念珠，用一只手捻动起来。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The priest fidgeted nervously with his black rosary beads.
牧师紧张地拨弄着他的黑色念珠。
来自辞典例句
3. Someone had began to whistle the Rosary, tunelessly inside.
里面有人已经开始不成腔地用口哨吹奏《玫瑰经》.
来自辞典例句
4. He took rosary beads from his pocket and began to pray silently.
他从口袋中取出念珠,开始默默祈祷.
来自辞典例句
5. Her hands lay open in her lap and, loosely between them, a rosary.