narthex
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈnɑrθɛks/
- Specialized
:
nártex
- Roberta glanced up, but the minister was still shaking hands with stragglers in the narthex.
Examples
-
As the choir sings "Amazing Grace," I slip from the pew and through the door into the narthex.
Fiction book (1996) -
At the doorway between narthex and nave, he dipped two fingers in the holy-water font and crossed himself.
Fiction book (1991) -
Most of the congregation that had gathered in little groups on the steps and in the narthex fell back from them slightly as they entered.
Fiction book (1990) -
There are also three entrances from the narthex to the nave.
Fiction book (1996) -
The two-story narthex is rose-carpeted, and brass chandeliers with teardrop bulbs provide a genteel amber light.
Fiction book (1996) -
Marion Fieldwalker and her volunteers were cataloging, dusting, shelving, and generally making sense of books that had been stacked in a room off the narthex since the time of the early prophets.
Fiction book (1999) -
As the choir sings "Amazing Grace," I slip from the pew and through the door into the narthex.
-
The two-story narthex is rose-carpeted, and brass chandeliers with teardrop bulbs provide a genteel amber light.
Synonyms
261
1.3
A large entrance area in a building where people wait
5
3.5
A space at the front of a building where people enter
4
8.2
A small room before a larger room where people wait
An open space in front of a church where people gather before entering
How Enclosed
Surface Forms
Etymology
Narthex comes from the Greek narthēx, the name of a long plant called 'giant fennel' whose stiff stem was used like a 'stick'. Early churches had a long covered porch at the front where people could wait, and that porch took the name, so narthex now means the entrance hall or porch of a church.