cloister
Meanings
Noun
- A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle; especially:
- A place, especially a monastery or convent, devoted to religious seclusion.
- The monastic life.
Verb
- To become a Roman Catholic religious.
- To confine in a cloister, voluntarily or not.
- To deliberately withdraw from worldly things.
- To provide with a cloister or cloisters.
- To protect or isolate.
Related
Similar words
- (become a Catholic religious) enter religion
Origin
- Recorded since about 1300 as Middle English cloistre, borrowed from Old French cloistre, clostre, or via Old English clauster, both from Medieval Latin claustrum ("portion of monastery closed off to laity"), from Latin claustrum ("place shut in, bar, bolt, enclosure"), a derivation of the past participle of claudere. claustrum.
Modern English dictionary
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