adytum
Americannoun
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adyta
plural
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(in ancient worship) a sacred place that the public was forbidden to enter; an inner shrine.
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the most sacred or reserved part of any place of worship.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of adytum
1665–75; < Latin < Greek ádyton (place) not to be entered, equivalent to a- a- 6 + -dyton, neuter of -dytos, verbid of dýein to enter
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:
Later that night, I peeked into the center’s adytum, a dark and lovely stone chapel whose altar glowed with candlelight.
From New York Times ● Dec. 29, 2011
The crypt of adytum, used by priests for unknown rituals, was about 12 by 13 feet, roughly built, its floor stuccoed.
From Time Magazine Archive
On the contrary, it believes in the innate goodness and God-like purity of the human soul, adoring it as the adytum from which divine oracles are proclaimed.
From Bushido, the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe
Concerning the tripod in the adytum at Crissa, see Epist.
From The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 1 of 2 by Karl Otfried Müller
The most famous adytum in Greece was in the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
From The Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia Volume 1 of 28 by Project Gutenberg
It is not the ever-victorious and successful that we take into the adyta of our hearts.
From The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 by Kenneth Morris
The magic rod of fanaticism is preserved in the very adyta of human nature; and needs only the re-exciting warmth of a master hand to bud forth afresh and produce the old fruits.
From Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The shrines are "Harim," or sacred, having adyta which are kept secret from the prying eyes of men, and, therefore, should be served by eunuchs.
From Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
What wonderful things they have heard from the adyta themselves!
From Arguments Of Celsus, Porphyry, And The Emperor Julian, Against The Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix by Thomas Taylor
And sometimes a dreadful voice issuing from the adyta has destroyed them*.
From Arguments Of Celsus, Porphyry, And The Emperor Julian, Against The Christians Also Extracts from Diodorus Siculus, Josephus, and Tacitus, Relating to the Jews, Together with an Appendix by Thomas Taylor
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
