[ad. F. choral or med.L. chorālis belonging to a chorus or choir.]
1. Of or belonging to a choir; sung by a choir.
Choral service: a church service in which the canticles, anthem, etc., are sung by the choir; when the versicles, responses, etc., are also sung or chanted, it is called a full choral service.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Choral, belonging to the Chorus or Quire.
1823. Byron, Juan, XIII. lxiii. The distant echo … harmonised by the old choral wall.
1843. J. Jebb, Choral Service Ch., ii. The highest … mode is that which is properly called Choral or Cathedral Service.
1853. Marsden, Early Purit., 84–5. The use of organs was not essential to public worship; nor choral chanting.
b. Choral vicar, vicar choral: ‘one of the officers of a cathedral whose duty it is to sing that portion of the music of the services which can be performed by laymen or men in minor orders. In some of the old cathedrals they formed a corporation, often jointly with the priest vicars. In many cathedrals the vicars choral were formerly in priests’ orders.’ (Stainer and Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms.).
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1302/1. The patronage … which he gaue and impropriated vnto the vicars chorall of his church.
1670. Blount, Law Dict., Mr. Dugdale (in his history of S. Paul’s Church, p. 172) says, There were anciently six vicars choral belonging to that Church.
1878. Clergy List, Cathedral Establ., Hereford … College of Vicars Choral.
† c. Choral bishop: (see quot.) Obs.
1771. Antiq. Sarisb., Lives Bishops, 177. Upon St. Nicholas’s day, the 6th of December, the children of the Choir elected from among themselves a Bishop whom we shall call the Choral Bishop.
2. Of, belonging to, or of the nature of a chorus; sung in chorus; containing a chorus or choruses.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 162. With songs and choral symphonies.
1795. Southey, Joan of Arc, IV. 154. They raised the choral hymn, ‘Thee Lord we praise, our God’!
1880. Rockstro, in Grove, Dict. Mus., II. 544. Such choral writing as his [Handel’s] had not yet been heard.
† b. Forming a chorus or band of singers. ? Obs.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymns Festiv., Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 208. You Choral Angels at the Throne.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., ix. 2367. The song of angels, all the melodies Of choral gods.
3. Antiq. Pertaining to, or forming, a chorus, as in the ancient Greek religious festivals.
1669. T. Le Blanc, in Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. xcvii. 8. A custom of forming choral bands of maidens after a victory.
1821. Byron, Juan, III. xxx. Bounded to her song With choral step and voice, the virgin throng.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, I. III. 100. Who goes to mingle in the choral dance.
