Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SO-LEM'NI-TY, n. [Fr. solemnité.]

1. A rite or ceremony annually performed with religious reverence. Great was the cause; our old solemnities / From no blind zeal or fond tradition rise, / But sav'd from death, our Argives yearly pay / These grateful honors to the god of day. – Pope. [Solemnities seems here to include the sense of anniversary. See the fourth line. But in modern usage, that sense is rarely or never attached to the word.]
2. A religious ceremony; a ritual performance attended with religious reverence; as, the solemnity of a funeral or of a sacrament.
3. A ceremony adapted to impress awe; as, the solemnities of the last day.
4. Manner of acting awfully serious. With horrible solemnity he caused every thing to be prepared for his triumph of victory. Sidney.
5. Gravity; steady seriousness; as, the solemnity of the Spanish language. Spectator.
6. Affected gravity. Solemnity's a cover for a sot. Young.