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

See Examples For:

charnel house

Technological "advances" had made it possible for governments to turn World War I into a merciless charnel house on a vast scale.

From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2023

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

Who has made known to thee this secret passage into endless vaults covered with eternal darkness? to this black charnel house, where moulder the bones of earlier and countless victims?

From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various