pilgrimage

From Middle English pilgrimage. By surface analysis, pilgrim +‎ -age.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪlɡɹɪmɪd͡ʒ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pil‧gri‧mage

pilgrimage (plural pilgrimages)

1. A journey made to a sacred place, or a religious journey.

   In the Muslim faith, the pilgrimage to Mecca is known as the Hajj.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 187:

     Rome, the mighty mother of the Christian faith, whose amphitheatres had been red with the blood of the saints, and where the pilgrimage and the miracle still testified to the truth.

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 204:

     It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares.

   • 2008, BioWare, Mass Effect (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Quarians: Pilgrimage Codex entry:

     Quarians are surgically fitted with their various immunity-boosted implants in preparation for leaving on Pilgrimage.

2. (by extension) A visit to any site revered or associated with a meaningful event.

   Each year we made a pilgrimage to New York City to visit the pub where we all first met.

   • 2023 August 5, Ben Sisario, “How Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Conquered the World”, in New York Times‎:

     For fans, the shows are a pilgrimage, and a rediscovery of the joys of mass gatherings.

• pilgrim

pilgrimage (third-person singular simple present pilgrimages, present participle pilgrimaging, simple past and past participle pilgrimaged)

1. To go on a pilgrimage.
   • 2023, Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood, page 78:

     in descent, as now, he always had a holy sense of having pilgerimaged, of returning having seen behind a veil.

• peregrinate

• pilgermage, piligrimage, pilgrinage, pilgrenage, pilgramege, pilgrimache, pilrimage, pelrimage

From Old French peligrinage, pelrimage, variants of pelerinage (“pilgrimage”); equivalent to pilegrim +‎ -age.

pilgrimage (plural pilgrimages)

1. pilgrimage
   • late 14th c. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue: 12-14.

     Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
     And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
     To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

     Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
     And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
     To distant shrines well known in distant lands.

• English: pilgrimage
• Scots: pilgrimag, pilgrimage, pilgramage