viaticum
/vʌɪˈatɪkəm/noun
viaticum is a noun meaning “The Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-I-A-T-I-C-U-M, and it appears about once in every 41 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of viaticum is viaticums or viatica.
What does viaticum mean?
noun
- 1
The Eucharist, when given to a person who is dying or one in danger of death.
- 2
Provisions, money, or other supplies given to someone setting off on a long journey.
- 3
A portable altar.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce viaticum?
- UK /vʌɪˈatɪkəm/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-viaticum.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of viaticum
- viaticums plural
- viatica plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is viaticum?
Viaticum appears about once in every 41 million words in written English, the 196,618th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Viaticum in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Eucharist:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does viaticum come from?
From Latin viāticum (“travelling-money, provisions for a journey”), from viāticus (“of a road or journey”), from via (“road”). Doublet of voyage.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).