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

Its portrait of life as a charnel house may be half the story but in this case, it’s the only half.

From New York Times • May 7, 2021

Hope was soon aloft, and down again; the ladder was shifted, the dead sentinels fastened to the ropes, and hoisted slowly out of their charnel house.

From Old Farm Fairies: A Summer Campaign In Brownieland Against King Cobweaver's Pixies by McCook, Henry Christopher