orison

Borrowed from Anglo-Norman oreison, oresoun etc. and Old French oraisun etc., from Latin ōrātiō, ōrātiōnem (“discourse, prayer”) (whence also English oration).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɒɹɪsən/, /ˈɒɹɪzən/

orison (plural orisons)

1. A prayer.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i], lines 88–89, page 265, column 2:

     The faire Ophelia! Nymph, in thy Orizons / Be all my ſinnes remembred.

   • 1917, Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

       Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

     Can patter out their hasty orisons.

2. Mystical contemplation or communion.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 3:

     We shall see later that the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison, or contemplation of the higher divine truths.

   • 1911, Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study of the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness, Part I, Chapter 3

     Only in certain occult and mystics states: in orison, contemplation, ecstasy iand their allied conditions, does the self contrive to turn out the usual tenants, shut the "gateways of the flash," and let those submerged powers which are capable of picking up messages from another plane of being have their turn.

• orate
• oration

• Nooris