Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A room where meals are served, especially in a college or other institution.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A room of refreshment; an eating-room; specifically, a hall or apartment in a convent, monastery, or seminary where the meals are eaten. Compare fraiter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A room for refreshment; originally, a dining hall in monasteries or convents.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dining-hall especially in an institution such as a college or monastery.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a communal dining-hall (usually in a monastery)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • But here is a Guydo -- the frame alone is worth pounds -- which any lady might be proud to hang up -- a suitable thing for what we call a refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the Corporation wished to show his munifi cence.

    Middlemarch: a study of provincial life (1900) 1871

  • But here is a Guydo -- the frame alone is worth pounds -- which any lady might be proud to hang up -- a suitable thing for what we call a refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the

    Middlemarch George Eliot 1849

  • At St. Katharinenthal, the refectory is in the north range, but juts out to the east.

    Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

  • The silence in the Dominican nuns 'refectory is similar to the requirements of other monastic rules, but the Rule focuses on the function that the room serves — a place to hear readings — giving a reason for the practice of silence often lacking in other Rules.

    Sensual Encounters: Monastic Women and Spirituality in Medieval Germany 2008

  • He asked if she had brought any answer to his note to Mr. Knight, and she told him that she had left it in the schoolroom, as she called the refectory, because he was out.

    Love Eternal Henry Rider Haggard 1890

  • The refectory is a large room, with a long narrow table running all round it – a plain deal table, with wooden benches; before the place of each nun, an earthen bowl, an earthen cup with an apple in it, a wooden plate and a wooden spoon; at the top of the table a grinning skull, to remind them that even these indulgences they shall not long enjoy.

    Life in Mexico, During a Residence of Two Years in That Country Frances Erskine Inglis 1843

  • In the chapel, a room sadly truncated by the new entrance hall, the physical evidence of Catholicism had been ruthlessly excised, but the cloister retained its tranquillity, and the large, undecorated dining hall could still properly be described as a refectory.

    The Blackstone Key Rose Melikan 2008

  • In the chapel, a room sadly truncated by the new entrance hall, the physical evidence of Catholicism had been ruthlessly excised, but the cloister retained its tranquillity, and the large, undecorated dining hall could still properly be described as a refectory.

    The Blackstone Key Rose Melikan 2008

  • In the chapel, a room sadly truncated by the new entrance hall, the physical evidence of Catholicism had been ruthlessly excised, but the cloister retained its tranquillity, and the large, undecorated dining hall could still properly be described as a refectory.

    The Blackstone Key Rose Melikan 2008

  • Every soul within the enclave came dutifully to Vespers, and supper in the guest-hall as in the refectory was a devout and tranquil feast.

    The Pilgrim of Hate Peters, Ellis, 1913-1995 1984

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