All 3 Uses of
pious
in
A Prayer for Owen Meany
- Gravesend Academy was founded in 1781 by the Rev. Emery Hurd, a follower of the original Wheelwright's original beliefs, a childless Puritan with an ability—according to Wall—for "Oration on the advantages of Learning and its happy Tendency to promote Virtue and Piety."†
p. 29.7 *piety = religious or highly moral belief/behavior OR (more rarely) devotion or faithfulness
- But I skip a Sunday service now and then; I make no claims to be especially pious; I have a church-rummage faith—the kind that needs patching up every weekend.†
p. 4.3
- In his waning years— ever watchful that Gravesend Academy devote itself to "pious and charitable purposes"—the Rev. Mr. Hurd was known to patrol Water Street in downtown Gravesend, looking for youthful offenders: specifically, young men who would not doff their hats to him, and young ladies who would not curtsy.†
p. 29.9
Definitions:
-
(1)
(pious as in: a good, pious woman) religious or highly moral
-
(2)
(pious as in: a pious hypocrite) self-righteous (acting as though one is, or believing one is highly moral when it is not true)
-
(3)
(pious as in: cling to the pious hope) (describing a hope or wish as) sincere, but highly unlikely
-
(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, piety can refer to devotion or faithfulness as Proust used it in the book, Swann's Way:
"...but when, as had befallen me, such an anguish possesses one's soul before Love has yet entered into one's life, then it must drift, awaiting Love's coming, vague and free, without precise attachment, at the disposal of one sentiment to-day, of another to-morrow, of filial piety or affection for a comrade."