Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A vault with niches for urns containing ashes of the dead.
- noun One of the niches in such a vault.
- noun A dovecote.
- noun A pigeonhole in a dovecote.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun . A dovecote; a pigeon-house. Also
columbary . - noun In Roman antiquity, a place of sepulture for the ashes of the dead, consisting of arched and square-headed recesses formed in walls, in which the cinerary urns were deposited: so named from the resemblance between these recesses and those formed in a dove-cote for the doves to build their nests in.
- noun In architecture, a hole left in a wall for the insertion of the end of a beam. Also called
putlog-hole . - noun Eccles., the columba or dove-shaped pyx. See
columba , 3.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A dovecote or pigeon house.
- noun A sepulchral chamber with niches for holding cinerary urns.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun a
dovecote ; one of thepigeonholes in a dovecote - noun a large, sometimes architecturally impressive building for housing a large colony of pigeons, particularly those of ancien regime France.
- noun by extension a building, a
vault or some similar place for the respectful and usually public storage ofcinerary urns containingcremated remains, or aniche in such a place
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a birdhouse for pigeons
- noun a niche for a funeral urn containing the ashes of the cremated dead
- noun a sepulchral vault or other structure having recesses in the walls to receive cinerary urns
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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The funerary vault, or Monumentum Liviae, contained the cremated remains of more than a thousand Roman slaves and freedmen, their ashes packed in row upon row of ollae burial jars stacked in tiny niches around the vault, like pigeonholes; hence the name columbarium, meaning “dovecote.”
Caesars’ Wives Annelise Freisenbruch 2010
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If a tomb was fitted up to contain many funeral ash-urns, it was known as a columbarium, or dove-cote (_columba_, a dove), the ashes of the freedmen and even slaves being placed in niches covered by lids and bearing inscriptions.
The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic Arthur Gilman
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A door in the wall, on the left of the approach to the grotto, and a very steep staircase, lead to the columbarium, which is situated in a pretty fruit-garden.
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 8 Italy and Greece, Part Two 1885
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The university wants to build what's called a columbarium -- a structure with niches for the ashes of alumni -- but there's a catch.
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The university wants to build what's called a columbarium - a structure with niches for the ashes of alumni - but there's a catch.
unknown title 2009
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A source of comfort and a favoured place of contemplation for the bereaved family, the columbarium is a receptacle where urns containing the ashes of a loved one are placed.
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Interment options at Augusta Memorial Park are a traditional ground space, a "columbarium" or cremation niche in a wall, a public mausoleum and a "private family estate" or standalone mausoleum.
newsleader.com - 2009
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He set it out in a 120x120 frame he termed a "columbarium" (i.e. a dovecote, which has a similar grid of niches) and records that it took him nine years to calculate, even with the newly imported technique of ‘algorism ', calculation with Arabic numerals rather than abacus.
Archive 1999-04-01 Ray Girvan 1999
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He set it out in a 120x120 frame he termed a "columbarium" (i.e. a dovecote, which has a similar grid of niches) and records that it took him nine years to calculate, even with the newly imported technique of ‘algorism ', calculation with Arabic numerals rather than abacus.
The Mandelbrot Monk Ray Girvan 1999
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Since the IG report was released, two other families with relatives whose ashes were placed in the cemetery's columbarium asked that their niches be opened, Horst said.
Scope of burial mistakes at Arlington is a mystery Christian Davenport 2010
jaime_d commented on the word columbarium
"Hassan Ibn Abbou's tomb is in a columbarium in Antony, a suburb of Paris. . ." Gilbert Adair translation of Georges Perec's La Disparition
August 11, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word columbarium
Just learnt the highly surprising but etymological no-brainer sense of dovecot(e) the other day from "Waverly". Century #2 is helpful as always in elucidation of "why the heck".
October 28, 2011
sionnach commented on the word columbarium
Yeah, milos! Good to see you!
October 28, 2011