monstrance

plural monstrances

1. ChristianityAn ornamental, often precious receptacle, either open or with a transparent cover, in which the sacramental bread (consecrated host) is placed for Eucharistic adoration.

   Sir Oswald had done pretty well during the war out of his timber, and there had been no death duties to pay for many years, not since the old man had died. But there was no doubt that the shoe was beginning to pinch. He had been obliged to sell that Spanish monstrance in '30, or was it '31?

   1935, Francis Beeding, “7/2”, in The Norwich Victims

   1 more example

   He loved to kneel down on the cold marble pavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or raising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid wafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the "panis caelestis," the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his breast for his sins.

   1891, Oscar Wilde, “Chapter 11”, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC

   Synonyms: ostensorium, ostensory