de profundis
adverb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L188566 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
adv
Etymology: Borrowed from Latin de profundis (“from the depths”).
- From deep feelings of misery or despair.
“Carts go along the streets; full of stript human corpses, thrown pell-mell; limbs sticking up: --seest thou that cold Hand sticking up, through the heaped embrace of brother corpses, in its yellow paleness, in its cold rigor; the palm opened towards Heaven, as if in dumb prayer, in expostulation de profundis, Take pity on the Sons of Men !”
“God can only be known de profundis.”
name
Etymology: From the Latin introit of the psalm.
- Alternative form of De Profundis.
“They further engage, that the charity-boys of the priory, shall, every night forever, sing at the said chapel in the honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, the anthem Salve Regina, or Ave Regina, and after it say the psalm De profundis, with the prayer Fidelium, or Inclina, for the souls of the father and mother of the bishop, and for his soul after his decease, and for the souls of all the faithful deceased...”
“Of particular interest is the fact that after Vespers the De profundis devotion was to follow immediately the performance of three polyphonic votive antiphons.”