vespers

Meanings

1. The sixth of the seven canonical hours, an evening prayer service
2. A massacre

1. plural of vesper

1. A Christian service held in the late afternoon or early evening; evensong

Etymology

From Middle English vespers, from Old French vespres (French vêpres), from Ecclesiastical Latin vesperae (“vespers”), substantivisation of relational Late Latin vesperus (“evening”), from vesper (“evening”) + -us. Euphemistic use first as Vèpres éphésiennes (“Ephesian Vespers”), coined in 1890 by historian Théodore Reinach by analogy with the Sicilian Vespers.