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columbarium

columbarium

1 9.9
A place with small spaces in the walls for holding urns with ashes
  • noun
  • /ˌkɒl.əmˈbɛr.i.əm/
translation icon : columbario
  • The columbarium was beautifully designed, providing a peaceful resting place for the urns of those who had been cremated.
  • columbarium for an urn

She's more real to me there than in her columbarium.

Examples

  • We never went to the Columbarium, but you can bet your ass it's on my next year's list!

    Blog text (2)
  • Go to the Columbarium off Geary and Stayan (behind the Kinko's/FedEx place).

    Blog text (2)
  • "Well-Organized Things": A columbarium, a place to urn the dead, is organized for the convenience of the living; the Civil Service, a place to earn a living, is organized for the dead.

    Blog text (5)
  • Today, a Yiddish library resembles nothing so much as an ancient columbarium, the ashes of countless dead writers stored in their decorative cases on the shelves.

    Academic text (2000)
  • Then he'd discovered the burial urn filled with precious stones, sitting innocently on the shelf of the makeshift columbarium in the church closet.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • Tomorrow is Toussaint in Paris, All Saints' Day, and I suppose I'll visit Brice's little white marble plaque in the columbarium at Père Lachaise.

    Fiction book (1996)
  • Families can choose to place their loved ones' ashes in a niche in a columbarium instead of a traditional burial plot.

  • Visitors often leave flowers and personal mementos at the columbarium to honor the memories of their departed relatives.

Synonyms

cinerarium
vscolumbarium
9.9

A small space in a tomb for keeping an urn with a person's ashes

is a larger building containing many such niches rather than a single chamber

Surface Forms

columbarium singular
columbaria plural

Etymology

The word columbarium comes from the Latin columba meaning 'dove' and the ending -arium meaning 'a place for'. It first meant a 'dovecote', a wall of small nests for pigeons, and today a columbarium is a wall of small niches that hold funeral urns, like nests holding ashes.