Anointing
To
anoint is to pour or smear with perfumed oil, milk, water, melted butter or other substances, a process employed ritually by many religions. People and things are anointed to symbolize the introduction of a sacramental or divine influence, a holy emanation, spirit, power or God. It can also be seen as a spiritual mode of ridding persons and things of dangerous influences, as of demons believed to be or to cause disease.
Unction is another term for anointing. The oil may be called
chrism. The word is known in English since c. 1303, deriving from Old French
enoint "smeared on", pp. of
enoindre "smear on", itself from Latin
inunguere, from
in- "on" +
unguere "to smear." Originally it only referred to grease or oil smeared on for medicinal purposes; its use in the Coverdale Bible in reference to Christ has spiritualized the sense of it, a sense expanded and expounded upon by St Paul's writings in his "Epistles". The title Christ is derived from the Greek term Χριστός meaning "the anointed one"; covered in oil, anointed, itself from the above mentioned word Keres.