OBSERVANCE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Observance

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/əbzˈərvəns/ Listen

noun

Observance n.

1.

The act or practice of observing or noticing with attention; a heeding or keeping with care; performance; usually with a sense of strictness and fidelity; as, the observance of the Sabbath is general; the strict observance of duties. "It is a custom More honored in the breach than the observance."

2.

An act, ceremony, or rite, as of worship or respect; especially, a customary act or service of attention; a form; a practice; a rite; a custom. "At dances These young folk kept their observances." "Use all the observance of civility." "Some represent to themselves the whole of religion as consisting in a few easy observances." "O I that wasted time to tend upon her, To compass her with sweet observances!"

3.

Servile attention; sycophancy. (Obs.) "Salads and flesh, such as their haste could get, Served with observance." "This is not atheism, But court observance."

Synonyms: Observance, Observation. These words are discriminated by the two distinct senses of observe. To observe means (1) to keep strictly; as, to observe a fast day, and hence, observance denotes the keeping or heeding with strictness; (2) to consider attentively, or to remark; and hence, observation denotes either the act of observing, or some remark made as the result thereof. We do not say the observation of Sunday, though the word was formerly so used. The Pharisees were curious in external observances; the astronomers are curious in celestial observations. "Love rigid honesty, And strict observance of impartial laws."

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Etymology of 'Observance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Observance" Quotes from Famous Books

... marked peculiarity in the character of the bishop's wife must be mentioned. Though not averse to the society and manners of the world, she is in her own way a religious woman; and the form in which this tendency shows itself in her is by a strict observance of the Sabbatarian rule. Dissipation and low dresses during the week are, under her control, atoned for by three services, an evening sermon read by herself, and a perfect abstinence from any cheering employment on Sunday. Unfortunately for those under her roof to whom the dissipation ...

— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... catastrophe, Harriet Martineau had written a number of slight pieces. They had been printed, and received a certain amount of recognition. They were of a religious cast, as was natural in one with whom religious literature, and religious life and observance, had hitherto taken in the whole sphere of her continual experience. Traditions of Palestine and Devotional Exercises are titles that tell their own tale, and we may be sure that their authoress was still at the antipodean point of the positive philosophy in which ...

— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley

... regidors, because the Audiencia had removed those who held that office. By virtue of a decree of your Majesty, the observance of which was demanded by the fiscal, those offices were offered at auction; but only two of them were sold. The purchasers were persons whose standing did your Majesty but know, you would surely not consider yourself served that [these offices should be ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various

... Provencal independence both of thought and deed, the inhabitants had been so unanimous in their Calvinism, and had offered such efficient resistance, as to have wrung from Government reluctant sanction for the open observance of the Reformed worship, and for the maintenance of a college for the education of ...

— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and fall of families, and shows that the misfortunes which overtake the rich and noble are greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the poor. This author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many of the old nobility and dispersed their families. Yet their descendants in many cases survive, and are to be found ...

— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

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