charnel house

American  

noun

1. a house or place in which the bodies or bones of the dead are deposited.

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charnel house British  

noun

1. (esp formerly) a building or vault where corpses or bones are deposited

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Etymology

Origin of charnel house

First recorded in 1550–60

Example Sentences

Out of this charnel house where an American flag hung at one end, technicians hoped to identify 388 sailors and Marines from the Oklahoma.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 8, 2024

Scaled up to a necropolis, it could make the right impression, a modernist Hooverville of death in the shadow of our great national charnel house of inaction.

From Washington Post • May 25, 2022

Above their heads: a charnel house of endangered trees.

From Scientific American • Dec. 15, 2021

I followed her out of the charnel house into a cold, heavy rain, spitting bile onto the pavement.

From New York Times • Dec. 17, 2020

There is not much of interest left in the church, but in one corner is a small, dark, stone-roofed charnel house, still heaped high with the whitened skulls of the monks who were entombed there.

From The Charm of Ireland by Stevenson, Burton Egbert