HOSANNA

hosanna, the cry of praise or adoration shouted in recognition of the messiahship of jesus on his entry into jerusalem (matt. xxi. 9, 15; mark xi. 9 sq.; john xii. 13), and since used in the christian church. it is also a jewish liturgical term, and was applied specifically to the "hosanna" branches carried in procession in the feast of booths or tabernacles, the seventh day of which was called the hosanna-day (so also in syrian usage; cf. "palm" sunday). this festival (for which see lev. xxiii. 39 sqq.; 2 macc. x. 7; jos. _ant._ xii. 10. 4, xiii. 13. 15; and the talmudic tractate _sukkah_) already suggested a dionysiac celebration to plutarch (_symp._ iv. 6), and was associated with a ceremonial drawing of water which, it was believed, secured fertilizing rains in the following year; the penalty for abstinence was drought (cf. zech. xiv. 16 seq.). the evidence (see further _ency. bib._ cols. 3354, 4880 seq.; i. levy, _rev. des et. juives_, 1901, pp. 192 sqq.) points to rites of nature-worship, and it is possible that in these the term hosanna had some other application. the old interpretation "save, now!" which may be a popular etymology, is based on ps. cxviii. 25 (heb. _hoshi'ah-nna_), but this does not explain the occurrence of the word in the gospels, a complicated problem, on which see the articles of j. h. thayer in hastings's _dict. bib._, and more especially t. k. cheyne, _ency. bib._ s.v. hose (a word common to many teutonic languages; cf. dutch, _hoos_, stocking, ger. _hose_, breeches, tights; the ultimate origin is unknown), the name of an article of dress, used as a covering for the leg and foot. the word has been used for various forms of a long stocking covering both the foot and leg (see hosiery), and this is the usual modern sense. but it also formerly meant a kind of gaiter covering the leg from the knee to the ankle only, of the long tight covering for the whole of the lower limbs, and later of the short puffed or slashed breeches worn with the doublet--at this period, from the early part of the 16th century onwards, comes the distinction between the "hose" or "trunk hose" and the stocking (see costume). the term is applied to certain objects resembling such a covering, as in its application to flexible rubber or canvas piping used for conveying water (see hosepipe), and in botany, to the "sheath" covering, e.g. the ear of corn. the term "hose-in-hose" is thus used in botany for a flower in which the corolla has become doubled, as though a second were inserted in the throat of the first; it occurs sometimes in the primrose.