PHYLACTERY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does phylactery mean? 

• PHYLACTERY (noun)
  The noun PHYLACTERY has 1 sense:

1. (Judaism) either of two small leather cases containing texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (known collectively as tefillin); traditionally worn (on the forehead and the left arm) by Jewish men during morning prayer

  Familiarity information: PHYLACTERY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PHYLACTERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(Judaism) either of two small leather cases containing texts from the Hebrew Scriptures (known collectively as tefillin); traditionally worn (on the forehead and the left arm) by Jewish men during morning prayer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

phylactery; tefillin

Hypernyms ("phylactery" is a kind of...):

reminder (a message that helps you remember something)

Domain category:

Judaism (the monotheistic religion of the Jews having its spiritual and ethical principles embodied chiefly in the Torah and in the Talmud)

 Context examples 

Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word Slattern, and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)