Hom"i*ly (?), n.; pl. Homilies (#). [LL. homilia, Gr. communion, assembly, converse, sermon, fr. an assembly, fr. same; cf. together, and crowd, cf. to press: cf. F. hom'elie. See Same.]
1.
A discourse or sermon read or pronounced to an audience; a serious discourse.
Shak.
2.
A serious or tedious exhortation in private on some moral point, or on the conduct of life.
As I have heard my father
Deal out in his long homilies.
Byron.
Book of Homilies. A collection of authorized, printed sermons, to be read by ministers in churches, esp. one issued in the time of Edward VI., and a second, issued in the reign of Elizabeth; -- both books being certified to contain a "godly and wholesome doctrine."
© Webster 1913.