black sanctus

English

Alternative forms

• black santis, blacke-saint, blacke santis, blacke santus, blacksaunt, black-sant, blacke saunts, blacke sanctus, black santos, black sanctis

Etymology

black +‎ sanctus

Noun

black sanctus (plural black sanctuses) (archaic)

1. A profane or blasphemous parody of a hymn.
   • 1578, Thomas Lupton, A moral and pitieful comedie, intituled, All for money […], folio 8^r:

     I knewe I would make him soone change his note, / I will make him sing the blacke sanctus, I holde him a grote.

   • 1861, Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton, “Adolfus, Duke of Guelders”, in All the Year Round: A Weekly Journal, volume 5, page 14:

     The surly sinners sing / A horrible black santis, so to cheer / The work in hand. And evermore you hear / A shout of awful joy, as down goes some / Three-hundred-years-old treasure.

2. (figuratively) Harsh words, especially profanities, or other dissonant noises; a cacophony.
   • 1533, Robert Saltwood, A comparyson bytwene. iiij. byrdes, the larke, the nyghtyngale, ye thrusshe & the cuko, for theyr syngynge who shuld be chauntoure of the quere‎^[1], folio 14^v:

     As plesaunt to the ere as the blacke sanctus / Of a sad sorte vpon a mery pyn.