laying on of hands

1. 1.

   the application of a faith healer's hands to the patient's body

   Broaderfaith healing
2. 2.

   laying hands on a person's head to invoke spiritual blessing in Christian ordination

   Broaderordination

Questions about laying on of hands

What does laying on of hands mean?

laying on of hands means "the application of a faith healer's hands to the patient's body". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is laying on of hands a common word?

laying on of hands is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.