[L.: see next.]
1. A napkin or cloth for wiping the face; a handkerchief (in quot. 1801 jocular); spec. the cloth with which, according to legend, St. Veronica wiped the face of Christ on the way to Calvary, and on which his features were impressed; hence, any similar cloth venerated as a relic; a portrait of Christ on a cloth. (Cf. VERNICLE, VERONICA.)
1601. W. Biddulph, in T. Lavender, Trav. Four Englishmen (1612), 115. A woman called Veronica … brought forth a Sudarium … to wipe his face.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 17 Nov. 1644. The miraculous Sudarium indued with the picture of our Saviour’s face.
1801. Syd. Smith, in Lady Holland, Mem. (1855), I. iii. 46. The most intrepid veteran of us all dares no more than wipe his face with his cambric sudarium.
1816. J. Dallaway, Stat. & Sculpt., 312. He … holds a sudarium in his right hand and in his left a roll.
1859. Gullick & Timbs, Painting, 61. A representation of this kind—the head of the Saviour on a cloth, and called a ‘sudarium’ is common in the works of early painters.
† b. = MANIPLE 3. Obs.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. iv. 187/1. The Manipulus or Sudarium, called also Mappula or Phanon.
2. = SUDATORIUM. Also fig.
1852. G. W. Curtis, Wand. in Syria, Damascus, vii. 329. You rise and enter the Sudarium beyond.
1863. Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah, 171. [In India] the mind, like the body, becomes languid and flabby and nerveless…. While this sudarium continues to be the seat of government [etc.].
