MONASTERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does monastery mean? 

• MONASTERY (noun)
  The noun MONASTERY has 1 sense:

1. the residence of a religious community

  Familiarity information: MONASTERY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MONASTERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The residence of a religious community

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("monastery" is a kind of...):

cloister; religious residence (residence that is a place of religious seclusion (such as a monastery))

Meronyms (parts of "monastery"):

cell; cubicle (small room in which a monk or nun lives)

minster (any of certain cathedrals and large churches; originally connected to a monastery)

scriptorium (a room in a monastery that is set aside for writing or copying manuscripts)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "monastery"):

abbey (a monastery ruled by an abbot)

charterhouse (a Carthusian monastery)

friary (a monastery of friars)

lamasery (a monastery for lamas)

 Context examples 

You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and monasteries.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

As quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It is my analysis of the documents found in the Coptic monasteries of Syria and Egypt, a work which will cut deep at the very foundation of revealed religion.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here an ancient monastery, whence the solemn chanting of the monks came down to them.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

A courtesy title of reverence, as for church dignitaries, officers of monasteries, monks, confessors, and especially priests.

(Father, NCI Thesaurus)

A stranger who knew nothing either of the Abbey or of its immense resources might have gathered from the appearance of the brothers some conception of the varied duties which they were called upon to perform, and of the busy, wide-spread life which centred in the old monastery.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Is this a tongue to be used within the walls of an old and well-famed monastery? But grace and learning have ever gone hand in hand, and when one is lost it is needless to look for the other.”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here and there only, on the farthest sky-line, the gnarled turrets of a castle, or the graceful pinnacles of church or of monastery showed where the forces of the sword or of the spirit had preserved some small islet of security in this universal flood of misery.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)