Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Chiefly British A pantry.
- noun A niche or cabinet, usually near the altar of a church, for keeping holy oil or other sacramental materials.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A place for keeping things; a storehouse, storeroom, closet, pantry, cupboard, press, safe, locker, chest. Specifically
- noun A place for keeping victuals; a pantry, cupboard, or meat-safe.
- noun Hir. Will not any fool take me for a wise man now, seeing me draw out of the pit of my treasury this little god with his belly full of gold?
- noun In ancient churches, a niche or recess, fitted with a door, in the wall near the altar, in which the sacred utensils were deposited.
- noun A place for keeping books; a library.
- noun Same as
almonry .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun In churches, a kind of closet, niche, cupboard, or locker for utensils, vestments, etc.
- noun A store closet, as a pantry, cupboard, etc.
- noun Improperly so used Almonry.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun obsolete A
storehouse . (Especially a niche or recess in a wall used for storage.)
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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So I opened the ambry, and within it was even more gloriously wrought than without; and there was nought therein, save
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But before I went, I looked around, and espied an ambry fashioned in the wall of the bed-lane, and the door was half open; and the said ambry was wrought of the daintiest, all of gold and pearl and gems; and I said to myself: Herein is some treasure, and this is a tide of war.
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The only furniture, excepting a washing-tub and a wooden press, called in Scotland an ambry, sorely decayed, was a large wooden bed, planked, as is usual, all around, and opening by a sliding panel.
Waverley 2004
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"Have you seen to putting the best platters and ewers in the ambry?"
Soul of the Fire Goodkind, Terry 1999
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In the south wall there is a beautiful piscina, and in the north wall an ambry with a small stone penthouse; an octagonal baptismal font of remarkable design stands against the east wall of the aisle.
Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys Herbert Story
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There is an ambry in the south wall near the east end, and the doorway is semicircular and of Norman character.
Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys Herbert Story
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The place wherein this chapel and alms-house standeth was called the Elemosinary, or almonry, now corruptly the ambry, for that the alms of the Abbey were there distributed to the poor; and therein Islip, abbot of Westminster, erected the first press of book-printing that ever was in England, about the year of Christ 1471.
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He had refused definitely to enter the atelier of the gentleman who pleased his clients by ingeniously simulating the grain of walnut; and though he had seen the old oaken ambry kicked out contemptuously into the farmyard, serving perhaps the necessities of hens or pigs, he would not apprentice himself to the masters of veneer.
The Hill of Dreams Arthur Machen 1905
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Coming to a fine carved ambry, he hesitated, then stood still.
Foes Mary Johnston 1903
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He opened a door of the ambry, pulled out a drawer, and, pressing some spring, revealed a narrow, secret shelf.
Foes Mary Johnston 1903
qms commented on the word ambry
The vitrine is full of counterfeit cheese;
The gouda there is fake as you please.
That rustic ambry
Is stuffed with a sham brie,
For faux food is art to the Japanese.
October 16, 2014