solemnity
/səˈlɛmnɪti
/noun (plural solemnities) [mass noun]
1The state or quality of being serious and dignified: his ashes were laid to rest with great solemnity...
- Shapiro's seriousness is not solemnity - the poems in this book do not allow for high-mindedness or convenient emotion - and his grief is not melodrama.
- Most couples realise that exchanging their vows is a key moment in life that calls for great seriousness and solemnity.
- There is in Machado's prose a playfulness that teases the reader, humor that mocks solemnity and seriousness.
Synonyms
dignity, ceremony, stateliness, courtliness, majesty, impressiveness, portentousness, splendour, magnificence, grandeur, importance, augustness, formality;
solemnness
seriousness, earnestness, gravity, sobriety, sombreness, sternness, grimness, dourness, humourlessness, glumness, gloominess, moodiness;
thoughtfulness, preoccupation, pensiveness, meditativeness;
staidness, sedateness, studiousness, bookishness, owlishness;
solemnness
1.1 [count noun] (usually solemnities) A formal, dignified rite or ceremony: the ritual of the Church was observed in all its solemnities...
- There the fool enjoyed special license to ridicule pretense and turn upside down social rituals and solemnities, including the dignity of the king himself.
- The Christmas season, with its worship, observances, solemnities, and inhibitions, ends at sunset on Twelfth Night.
- All the hideous excrescences that have overgrown our modern life, the pomps and conventions and dreary solemnities, dread nothing so much as the flash of laughter which, like lightning, shrivels them up and leaves the bones bare.
Synonyms
formalities, proceedings, business, rigmarole, ado, ceremony, rite, ritual, celebration, festivity
informal palaver, performance
Origin
Middle English (in the sense 'observance of formality and ceremony', frequently in the phrases in solemnity, with solemnity): from Old French solemnite, from Latin sollemnitas, from sollemnis (see solemn).