sanctuary
nounEtymology
From Middle English seyntuarie, from Old French saintuaire, from Late Latin sanctuarium (“a sacred place, a shrine, a private cabinet, in Medieval Latin also temple, church, churchyard, cemetery, right of asylum”), from Latin sanctus (“holy, sacred”); see saint.
- derived from sanctus
- derived from sanctuarium
- derived from saintuaire
- inherited from seyntuarie
Definitions
A place of safety, refuge, or protection.
- My car is a sanctuary, where none can disturb me except for people who cut me off.
- She saw him, even as she had last gazed upon him, pale, cold, and awful; but still he was there. The coffin was to her like a shrine; all that she held most dear and most precious was within its dark and silent sanctuary.
- ‘I understand that the district was considered a sort of sanctuary,’ the Chief was saying. ‘An Alsatia like the ancient one behind the Strand, or the Saffron Hill before the First World War.[…]’
An area set aside for protection.
- The bird sanctuary has strict restrictions on visitors so the birds aren't disturbed.
A state of being protected, asylum.
- The government granted sanctuary to the defector, protecting him from his former government.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
The consecrated (or sacred) area of a church or temple around its tabernacle or altar.
- Near-synonym: chancel (broadly synonymous)
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at sanctuary. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at sanctuary. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
7 hops · closes at sanctuary
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA