Noun: reredos
| Singular | reredos |
| Plural | reredoses |
Sample Sentences
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Near-synonym: retable (often synonymous)
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A bad reredos will ruin the best church ever designed; and, although a good reredos cannot convert a bad church into a good one, it may do much to lessen the offensiveness of its badness. [1871, The Sacristy: A Quarterly Review of Ecclesiastical Art and Literature, volume 1, London: John Hodges, page 246:]
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Confusion has reigned in scholarly interpretation, however, because the dark-colored leaves have shown through the succeeding coats of paint across the reredos, interfering with the later scenes. [1998, Paul V. M. Flesher, “Rereading the Reredos: David, Orpheus, and Messianism in the Dura Europa Syngogue”, in Dān Ûrman, Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher, editors, Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, page 363:]
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There seem to be no remains of wooden reredoses of the fourteenth century, though there are a number of examples in stone. [2007, F. E. Howard, English Church Woodwork, page 137:]
Nouns inflected like reredos
penniless-bench,
wintergrass,
kitchen pass,
grey fox,
grey box,
trailer hitch,
paleness,
loaded march,
Tush Push,
horribleness,
slaughteress,
chapparvovirus,
greenwax,
royal flush,
crab cactus,
geostress,
syngas,
wintercress,
ichthys,
ichthus, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English reredos, from Anglo-Norman reredos, areredos; equivalent to rere (“rear”) + French dos (“back”). See: Middle English Nouns '
reredos'.