Holy WATER, a water prepared every Sunday in the Romish church, with divers prayers, exorcisms, &c. used by the people to cross themselves withal at their entrance to and going out of church; and pretended to have the virtue of washing away venial sins, driving away devils, preserving from thunder, dissolving charms, securing from, or curing diseases, &c. Many of the Reformed take the use of holy water to have been borrowed from the lulral water of the ancient Romans.