Also 6–7 breuiarie, 7 breauarye, breaviary, breviari. [ad. L. breviārium ‘summary, abridgement,’ from neuter of breviārius adj. ‘abridged,’ f. brevi-s short.]
1. A brief statement, summary, epitome. ? Obs.
1547. Boorde, Brev. Health, Pref. 5 b. Namynge this booke accordyng to the matter, which is, the Breuiary of health.
1580. North, Plutarch, 421. Lucullus … layed a great wager … that he would write the Breviary of the Marsean Wars in Verse or Prose.
1635. N. R., trans. Camden’s Hist. Eliz., II. 139, marg. note. A breaviary of the Queene of Scots discourse.
1667. E. Chamberlayne, St. Gt. Brit., I. III. x. (1743), 224. The Navy Office, Excise Office, etc. etc., are of lesser Note than can be particularized in this Breviary.
1728. Newton, Chronol. Amended, Introd. 2. Hippias, the Elean … published a breviary or list of the Olympic Victors.
1801. W. Playfair (title), Statistical Breviary, showing the Resources of every State in Europe.
† b. transf. and fig.; cf. epitome.
1609. Bp. Andrewes, Serm., II. 243. This little word is a breviary of all that good is.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, I. xli. Wks. (1677), 67. In all which he is but the great worlds Breviary.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., XV. § 27. Christs discipline was the breviary of all the wisdom of the best men.
2. In the Roman Catholic Church, the book containing the ‘Divine Office’ for each day, which those who are in orders are bound to recite.
The Office consists of psalms, collects and ‘lections’ or readings from the Scripture and the lives of the Saints. Those who are only in ‘Minor Orders,’ i.e., below the grade of sub-deacon, are not required to say Office.
1611. Bible, Pref., 9. What alterations haue they made … of their Seruice bookes, Portesses, and Breuiaries.
1794. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit. (1848), I. 17. The psalms of a breviary or the prayers of a missal.
1832. trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., viii. 178. He recited his breviary.
[1836. J. H. Newman, Tracts for Times, No. 75. The word Breviarium first occurs in … the eleventh century, and is used to denote a compendium or systematic arrangement of the devotional offices of the Church.]
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 204. While breviaries and mass books were printed at Oxford under a royal licence … Baxter was in gaol; Howe was in exile.
b. fig.
1826. C. Butler, Grotius, xi. 174. It was the breviary of all French aspirants to political distinction.
1877. Shields, Final Philos., 46. Montaigne of Bordeaux … whose sprightly ‘Essays,’ more Pagan than Christian, have been styled the breviary of free-thinkers.
1878. Morley, Diderot, II. 115. She habitually called the Spirit of Laws the breviary of Kings.
