clarissa
/kləˈɹɪsə/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.98 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A female given name from Latin or Italian.
noun
Synonym of Poor Clare: a nun of the Order of Saint Clare.
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Clarissa: a nun of the Order of Saint Clare.
Example Sentences
- "My wife's maiden name—Unmarried name, I should rather say […] was Harlowe—Clarissa Harlowe—you heard me call her my Clarissa— I did—but I thought it to be a feigned or a love-name, said Miss Rawlins. […] No—it was her real name, I said."
- "Following Francis' example, Clare founded an order of religious women known as the Poor Ladies of Assisi (like Francis' Poor Men), and later as the Clarissas or Poor Clares in her honor."
- "In the protomonastero of Santa Chiara in Assisi, erected from the outset for the Clarissas, however, equally frequent changes and modifications in the location of the nuns' choir suggest that there were still uncertainties as to the best place for it."
- "The rule of Urban IV also clarified the nomenclature of the Clarissas, with the pope designating the group as the Order of St. Claire rather than Poor Ladies, or Poor Recluses, of San Damiano."
- "[…] all these obscene references of a sexual nature punctuate the ritualistic prodigality of the Northeast and its winter cycle, and if in the main popular qualification of the character of the clarissa nun called Maria Ermelinda Correia, the composer of the sweet in the mouth of the people, as an expression of her overblown greediness."
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian Clarissa, from Medieval Latin Clarissa; see there for more. Popularized in English by Samuel Richardson's 1748 novel Clarissa. Doublet of Clarisse.
Word Breakdown
- Root: Clarissa