altarless

comparative more altarless · superlative most altarless

1. Not having an altar.

   Gradually, the exteriors of stone-mound tumuli took on different shapes, from altarless to altar-equipped and tier-type structures.

   2004, Korea Now - Volume 33, page 30

   2 more examples

   The hypothesis that the cult center was in some such place would explain why it was altarless. It would resemble the cult of Hestia, the sacred Hearth, a cult that was generally housed in public or private buildings and was usually altarless because the sacred fire of the hearth substituted for an altar.

   1990, Norman Oliver Brown, Hermes the Thief: The Evolution of a Myth, page 117

   But when attending the Quaker service, he still encounters a certain 'special' silence: in the wholly undecorated, altarless room, there is nothing to be heard except 'the crackling of the fireplace and muffled coughing', until, in an odd combination of spontaneity and planning, someone 'moved' by the spirit holds a 'carefully prepared' speech.

   2014, Jan Rehmann, Max Weber: Modernisation as Passive Revolution

2. To which there is no dedicated place of worship.

   The goddess altarless, without a throne.

   1881, The Californian, page 290

   3 more examples

   The elders silent, glad to hear retold The tales, familiar, of their downthrown gods, Not utterly unloved though altarless.

   1881, George Washington Wright Houghton, The Legend of St. Olaf's Kirk, page 13

   Common Sense, you unpleasant goddess, altarless in ancient Athenian days, why did I not sacrifice to thee instead of cutting strange capers at the base of Parnasus?

   1892, Fergus Hume, When I Lived in Bohemia

   In this hour of your triumph, I say this, Say it not only to you But to Zeus and all on Olympus: Think of the altarless Fates

   1994, William Allison Shimer, The American Scholar - Volume 63, page 295

3. Having no place to hold religious services.

   Liam's poem about the Irish as wandering in 'feastless, houseless, altarless' exile repeats Keating's belief that Ireland's hope is the Almighty God.

   1996, Thomas Heffernan, Gathering in Ireland, page 67

   2 more examples

   The wandering and altarless homes of this wild people are, as it were, a neutral ground between the lands of the Bible and of the Koran, the traditional customs of which still serve to explain how Jew and Mahometan, members of the same race, while most widely parted in doctrine, may yet maintain the closest union in many important points of the moral and social system.

   1856, Edinburgh Review, Or, Critical Journal - Volume 104, page 365

   Such a reading would not in any case explain its author's use of the frequentative tense of the verbs, which indicates that he did not understand Josiah's action described in v. 8aα as such a one-off measure, but rather, we must presume, as making provision for these now altarless priests to exercise their priestly office at the altar in Jerusalem, should any of them wish to do so.

   2014, Ernest Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judaean Diaspora, page 32