churching

plural churchings

1. countableuncountableChristianityThe ceremonial blessing of a woman who has given birth.

   The churching of women traditionally includes thanksgiving for the women's survival of childbirth.

   2 more examples

   The clergyman had to dine some distance from town, and had got two churchings, three christenings, and a funeral, to perform in something less than an hour.

   1834, Charles Dickens, “The Bloomsbury Christening”, in Sketches by Boz

   As discussed in detail by Caroline Shenton, the churchings of Queen Philippa, for which the details following Isabella's birth in 1333 survive, represented a 'gigantic festival of a family whose start in life had been extremely unsteady'.

   2010, Chris Given-Wilson, Fourteenth Century England VI, page 145

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of church