from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A blowing or blast.
- noun A kind of exorcism, performed by blowing at the evil spirit. See
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete A blast from beneath.
- noun (Eccles.) A kind of exorcism by blowing with the breath.
- noun (Physiol.) A strongly forced expiration of air from the lungs.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete A
- noun obsolete A kind of
exorcismby blowingwith the breath.
- noun biology, obsolete A strongly forced
expirationof airfrom the lungs.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
In the finals there was the ice breaker: "The spellers' exsufflation at spelling the word correctly blew people's hair back in the front row."
Sometimes the exorcist used the rite of exsufflation, and sometimes, as St. Cyprian states, adjured the evil spirit to depart per Deum verum (by the true God).