homilies

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

“homilies” is listed under Homily.

Origin: LL. homilia, Gr. … communion, assembly, converse, sermon, fr. … an assembly, fr. … same; cf. … together, and … crowd, cf. … to press: cf. F. homélie. See Same.

1. A discourse or sermon read or pronounced to an audience; a serious discourse. William Shakespeare

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.— George Noel Gordon, Ld. 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’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54