a. and sb. [a. F. bénédictin, f. L. benedictus; see -INE.]
A. adj. Of or belonging to St. Benedict or the religious order founded by him.
1630. Wadsworth, Sp. Pilgr., vi. 49. [He] had a Benedictine Monke to his Tutor.
1861. Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th C., 265. The chapter-house of Westminster (a Benedictine abbey before the Reformation) was polygonal.
B. sb. 1. One of the order of monks, also known, from the color of their dress, as Black Monks, founded by St. Benedict about the year 529.
1602. W. Watson, Decacordon, 185. Sequestred as Augustines from Benedictines.
1721. Lond. Gaz., No. 5954/2. Dom Thierry, a Benedictine, is banished the Kingdom.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt (1868), 40. When the black Benedictines ceased to pray and chant in this church.
2. A kind of liqueur.
1882. J. Hawthorne, Fort. Fool, I. xviii. It smelt rather like Benedictine, but it was difficult to be certain about these liqueurs.