discumbency
English edit
Etymology edit
From Latin discumbens, present participle of discumbere. See discubitory.
Noun edit
discumbency (uncountable)
- The act of reclining at table according to the manner of the ancients at their meals.
- 1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC:
- among the Insticutionary rules of youth , he adviseth they might not be permitted to hear Iambicks and Tragedies before they were admitted unto discumbency or lying along with others at their meals
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “discumbency”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)