genuflection

• genuflexion (British)

Borrowed from Latin genuflexio, though with standardized spelling. By surface analysis, genuflect (“to bend the knee”) +‎ -ion (Latinate abstract-noun suffix).

genuflection (countable and uncountable, plural genuflections)

1. The act of genuflecting.
   • 1820, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; Or, Swellfoot The Tyrant: A Tragedy in Two Acts:

     Those impious Pigs,
     Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn
     The settled Swellfoot system, or to make
     Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions
     Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipt
     Into a loyal and an orthodox whine.

   • 2025 January 12, David Remnick, “The Inauguration of Trump's Oligarchy”, in The New Yorker:

     Certain business titans have made Mar-A-Lago a scene of such flagrant self-abnegation, ring-kissing, and genuflection that it would embarrass a medieval Pope.