viaticum
nounUK /vʌɪˈatɪkəm/
Etymology From Latin viāticum (“travelling-money, provisions for a journey”), from viāticus (“of a road or journey”), from via (“road”). Doublet of voyage.
1
Catholicism, Christianity Especially The Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death.
- […]from Anglo-Saxon times there had been a deep conviction that to receive the viaticum was a virtual death sentence which would make subsequent recovery impossible.1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (nonfiction), Folio Society; republished as Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century England, Penguin Books, 2003, →ISBN, page 37:
2
Figuratively, Often Provisions, money, or other supplies given to someone setting off on a long journey.
- Towards night-fall he entered a town called Sa’adiyah where he alighted and took out somewhat of his viaticum and ate.1885, “Night 20”, in Sir Richard Burton, transl., The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (fiction), Kama Shastra Society, translation of أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ [ʔalfu laylatin walaylatun, One Thousand and One Nights] (in Arabic); republished 1978, →ISBN:
- That viaticum I had been made to drink had undoubtedly been spiked with cantharides or something.1971, Anthony Burgess, M/F (fiction), Jonathan Cape; republished Penguin Books, 2004, →ISBN, page 184:
3
A portable altar.