lampad

Their faces had the warm glow of lampads in an ancient church[....]

--We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Bernard Guilbert Guerney in 1960; p. 52 of the 1977 Penguin edition

A "lampad" is a lamp, but according to MW3, the term is specifically "used of the seven lamps of fire in Rev. 4:5." I'm not sure whether that means it's only used in that context, or whether that's just an example.

One Response to “lampad”

  1. Shmuel

    For what it’s worth… MW2 and MW1 specify that it’s used only of the lampads of that verse in Revelations; RH2 neglects to mention any such restriction; and AHD4 doesn’t have the word at all.

    Moving from my reference shelves to an online resource I’m going to miss when I lose access to it shortly… the OED’s definition is “In pl., the seven ‘lamps of fire’ burning before the throne of God (Rev. iv. 5).” The earliest citation comes from Coleridge in 1796: “Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, (The mystic Words of Heaven) Permissive signal make.”

    It’s possible that Guerney meant to use “lampadary,” the secondary definition of which in the OED is “A cluster of lamps; a candelabrum. rare.

    It also offers “lampadist,” a competitor in a torch-race, which might be useful for the preparations for the next Olympics. A synonym for this is “lampadephore,” and the race itself is a “lampadedromy.” (All of these are labelled Gr. Antiq.)

    Finally, “lampadomancy” is “a mode of divination by the observation of substances burned in a lamp.” Who knew?

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