pilgrimage

From Middle English pilgrimage.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪlɡɹɪmɪd͡ʒ/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• 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], Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), OCLC 630079698, 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 1042815524, 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 246633669, PC, scene: Quarians: Pilgrimage Codex entry:

     When quarians of the Migrant Fleet reach young adulthood, they must leave their birth ship and find a new crew to accept them as permanent residents. To prove themselves, they must recover something of value. This is offered to their prospective captain as proof that they will not be a mere burden on the shoestring resources of the ship.
     This process is called the Pilgrimage. Stripped of ritual, the Pilgrimage is merely an attempt to maintain genetic diversity within the small, relatively isolated population bases that make up the Migrant Fleet. If the young stayed and married within their birth vessel, the risk of inbreeding would increase sharply.
     Quarians are surgically fitted with their various immunity-boosted implants in preparation for leaving on Pilgrimage. Having grown within the sterile, controlled environments of the Migrant Fleet ships, quarians have virtually no natural immune system.

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.

• pilgrim

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

1. To go on a pilgrimage.

• 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