Cloister

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈklɔɪstə/

Definitions

1. A roofed passageway with pillared openings enclosing a courtyard, commonly found in convents and monasteries, or to seclude oneself from society
2. A covered arcade with columns bordering an open court in religious buildings, or to isolate and withdraw from the outside world
3. A covered passage or walkway that encircles a courtyard in monastic or religious buildings ; to remove oneself from social contact or public life for solitude or contemplation

Etymology: The word that now names a quiet arcade around a monastery garden once meant something closer to a barred enclosure. Its Latin ancestor "claustrum" meant "place shut in, bar, bolt, enclosure," and it came from "claudere," "to close," the same root that gives English "close," "closed," and "include." The lock and the boundary came first; the calm walkway came later. Medieval Latin narrowed "claustrum" to mean the portion of a monastery closed off to laypeople, the part where monks lived and worshipped apart from the outside world. Over time, the enclosed courtyard and the walks that ran around it took on the name, and English speakers borrowed the word from Old French "cloistre" around 1300. English also had a separate older route through Old English "clauster," so the word arrived by more than one path. Because "cloister" and "claustrum" share the same origin, they are doublets, two forms of one word that came into English by different routes. The verb sense, to shut away from the world, follows naturally from the original idea of an enclosed space.

Synonyms: convent, monastery, abbey, hermitage, cell