columbarium
Americannoun
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columbaria
plural
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a sepulchral vault or other structure with recesses in the walls to receive the ashes of the dead.
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any one of these recesses.
noun
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another name for a dovecote
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a vault having niches for funeral urns
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a hole in a wall into which a beam is inserted
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of columbarium
1840–50; < Latin: literally, a nesting box for pigeons, equivalent to columb ( a ) pigeon, dove + -ārium -ary
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Explaining the columbarium, Chung says the "entire wall appears to be filled with grid-patterned storage compartments for remains".
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
Her remains are stored in one of a series of ornate lockers in the columbarium of a Buddhist temple in Hsinchu, second from the bottom, just a few feet away from my uncle, her son.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
Frank Eugene Corder crashed a small plane onto the South Lawn of the White House in 1994 before also being placed in a columbarium.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2022
Ms. Morissette and partners purchased it in 1980 for $50,000 to use as a columbarium, state records show.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2022
A columbarium was a tomb containing a number of cinerary urns in niches like pigeon-holes, whence the name.
From Walks in Rome by Augustus J. C. Hare
Small armies of landscapers tend to lush grass and rolling hills, where private roads with names like “Memory Lane” and “Baby Land” lead upward past maximalist mausoleums, columbaria and replica Renaissance statuary.
From New York Times ● Aug. 31, 2023
Last year the cemetery opened a new 27-acre section capable of holding about 27,000 remains in specially built close-packed, pre-dug graves and a new niche wall and columbaria.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 25, 2019
The 16,000 spaces in the new niche wall and columbaria are waiting.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2018
Singapore prefers columbaria, in which urns of cremated remains are stored in cavities on a wall.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2017
Another institution, that of columbaria, or ossaria, as they would more properly be called, owes its origin to the same cause.
From Pagan and Christian Rome by Rodolfo Amedeo Lanciani
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