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Glite Dictionary
🧠 A brain region 🏝️ An island 🏛️ An old apartment
insula

insula

1 9.9
An old Roman building with many small homes for families
  • noun
  • /ˈɪn.sə.lə/
  • Specialized
: íncubo
  • Many historical sites in Rome feature remains of an insula, illustrating how people lived in ancient times.

Examples

  • I shook my head and explained that I thought it looked like an insula.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • In ancient Rome, an insula was often several stories high, providing housing for the city's growing population.

  • This one is the so-called Insula, INSULA of Serapis.

  • The insula was home to many families in ancient Rome, each living in their own small apartment.

Synonyms

Roman building
vsinsula
1 6.8

A building the ancient Romans built with arches, domes and vaults

refers specifically to multi story dwellings housing many families

Surface Forms

insula singular
insulas plural

Etymology

Insula comes from the Latin insula, which means 'island'. In ancient Rome an insula was a tall, crowded apartment building that stood like its own 'island' in the city, and that image explains why the word refers to this kind of housing.