All 4 Uses
baptism
in
The Women of Brewster Place
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- It was born three months later in the city legislature, and since its true parentage was hidden, half the community turned out for its baptism two years later.†
p. 1.8 *
- There were no crowds at this baptism, which took place at three o'clock in the morning when Mrs. Colligan's son, stumbling home drunk and forgetting the wall was there, bloodied his nose and then leaned over and vomited against the new bricks.†
p. 2.6
- She then led her freshly wet, glistening body, baptized now, to the bed.†
p. 105.8baptized = "spiritually renewed" in a Christian ceremony OR initiated or purified by a challenging experiencestandard suffix: The suffix "-ize" converts a word to a verb. This is the same pattern you see in words like apologize, theorize, and dramatize.
- Born with the appendages of power, circumcised by a guillotine, and baptized with the steam from a million nonreflective mirrors, these young men wouldn't be called upon to thrust a bayonet into an Asian farmer, target a torpedo, scatter their iron seed from a B-52 into the wound of the earth, point a finger to move a nation, or stick a pole into the moon—and they knew it.†
p. 169.9
Definitions:
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(1)
(baptism) a Christian ceremony signifying spiritual cleansing and rebirth
or:
a challenging experience that initiates or purifiesMost churches baptize infants, but some require an adult to request baptism, and a few (such as the Quakers) require no baptism at all.
Typically, water is used as part of the ceremony, such as sprinkling a little water on a baby's head; though some churches use complete submersion in water. - (2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)