[L.: 2nd pers. pl. imp. of venīre to come.] The ninety-fifth psalm (the ninety-fourth in the Vulgate, beginning Venite, exultemus Domino) used as a canticle at matins or morning prayer; the invitatory psalm; also, a musical setting of this.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 18. Þus doð et euerich Gloria Patri, & et te biginnunge of þe Venite.
c. 1450. in Aungier, Syon (1840), 364. The two sustres that be tabled to synge the versicles schal synge the Venite and the first verse at matens.
1657. Sparrow, Bk. Com. Prayer, 32. The Venite. O come let us sing unto the Lord. This is an Invitatory Psalm.
1713. Gibson, Codex Juris Eccl. Angl., 299. Invitatories, Some Text of Scripture, adapted and chosen for the Occasion of the Day, and used before the Venite.
1853. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, III. II. xii. 213. On high feast days, the ‘Venite’ used to be sung with great solemnity, by the rulers of the choir.
1877. J. D. Chambers, Div. Worship, 134. The mode of singing the ‘Venite,’ with an Invitatory superadded.
1899. A. C. Benson, Life Abp. Benson, I. xv. 589. He had himself ushered to his place by the verger before the Venite.
† b. Venite book, a book containing a musical setting of the ‘Venite’; a venitary. Obs.
1434. Invent. St. Mary’s, Scarborough, in Archaeologia, LI. 66. Et unum librum vocatum Venite boke.
1537. in Glassock, Rec. St. Michaels, 127. Item iij pryntid masbooke and a venyte booke.
1559. Dunmow Churchw. MS., 43 b. A booke of parchment conteyninge in yt a Venite booke, an ymnall, and a boke for diriges and berialls.
