viaticum

plural viaticums · plural viatica

1. especiallyCatholicismThe Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death.

   […]from Anglo-Saxon times there had been a deep conviction that to receive the viaticum was a virtual death sentence which would make subsequent recovery impossible.

   1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (nonfiction), Folio Society; republished as Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England, Penguin Books, 2003, →ISBN, page 37

2. figurativelyoftenProvisions, money, or other supplies given to someone setting off on a long journey.

   That viaticum I had been made to drink had undoubtedly been spiked with cantharides or something.

   1971, Anthony Burgess, M/F (fiction), Jonathan Cape; republished Penguin Books, 2004, →ISBN, page 184

   1 more example

   Towards night-fall he entered a town called Sa’adiyah where he alighted and took out somewhat of his viaticum and ate.

   One Thousand and One Nights

   1885, “Night 20”, in Sir Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (fiction), Kama Shastra Society, translation of أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ [ʔalfu laylatin walaylatun, One Thousand and One Nights] (in Arabic); republished 1978, →ISBN

3. A portable altar.