temple

Meanings

Noun

• A house of worship, especially:
• A meeting house of the Oddfellows fraternity; its members.
• Any place regarded as holding a religious presence.
• Any place seen as an important centre for some activity.
• Anything regarded as important or minutely cared for.
• A gesture wherein the forefingers are outstretched and touch pad to pad while the other fingers are clasped together.
• The slightly flatter region, on either side of the human head, behind of the eye and forehead, above the zygomatic arch, and forward of the ear.
• Either of the sidepieces on a set of spectacles, extending backwards from the hinge toward the ears and, usually, turning down around them.
• A contrivance used in a loom for keeping the web stretched transversely.

Verb

• To build a temple for; to appropriate a temple to; to temple a god

Related

Similar words

• house of worship, place of worship

Narrower meaning words

• church ; mosque ; synagogue ; gurudwara, gurdwara ; athenaeum , Mithraeum ; Iseum, Iseion ; serapeum ; hecatompedon

Origin

• From Middle English temple, from Old English templ, tempel, borrowed from Latin templum ("shrine, temple, area for auspices"). Compare Old High German tempal, also a borrowing from the Latin.
• From Middle English temple, from Old French temple, from Vulgar Latin, from Latin tempora, plural of tempus. See temporal bone.
• Borrowed from Latin templum ("a small timber, a purlin"); compare templet and template.