Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

‖

Noun.

[Pref.

hyper-

dulia

: cf. F.

hyperdulie

(R. C. Ch.)

Veneration or worship given to the Virgin Mary as the most exalted of mere creatures; higher veneration than dulia.

Addis & Arnold.

Noun.

[Gr. beyond, and service.] Super-service in the Romish church, performed to the virgin Mary.

hyperdulia ‎(usually uncountable, plural hyperdulias)

(Roman Catholicism) A level of veneration higher than dulia but less than latria, properly given to the Virgin Mary only.
- 2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin 2010, p. 451:
  By the thirteenth century, the growth of devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, in both East and West led John of Damascus's admirer Thomas Aquinas to formalize a further refinement: the concept of an exceptional sort of veneration, hyperdulia, offered only to the greatest of God's creations, Mary, the mother of Jesus.