cloister
Americannoun
-
cloisters
plural
-
a covered walk, especially in a religious institution, having an open arcade or colonnade usually opening onto a courtyard.
-
a courtyard, especially in a religious institution, bordered with such walks.
-
a place of religious seclusion, as a monastery or convent.
-
any quiet, secluded place.
-
life in a monastery or convent.
verb (used with object)
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cloisters,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cloistered,
past participle, past
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cloistering
present participle
-
to confine in a monastery or convent.
-
to confine in retirement; seclude.
-
to furnish with a cloister or covered walk.
-
to convert into a monastery or convent.
noun
-
a covered walk, usually around a quadrangle in a religious institution, having an open arcade or colonnade on the inside and a wall on the outside
-
(sometimes plural) a place of religious seclusion, such as a monastery
-
life in a monastery or convent
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
cloistersimple
-
cloisterssimple
-
have cloisteredperfect
-
has cloisteredperfect
-
am cloisteringprogressive
-
are cloisteringprogressive
-
is cloisteringprogressive
-
have been cloisteringperfect progressive
-
has been cloisteringperfect progressive
Past
-
cloisteredsimple
-
had cloisteredperfect
-
was cloisteringprogressive
-
were cloisteringprogressive
-
had been cloisteringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cloister
1250–1300; Middle English cloistre < Anglo-French, Old French, blend of cloison partition ( see cloisonné) and clostre (< Latin claustrum barrier ( Late Latin: enclosed place); see claustrum)
Explanation
A cloister is an enclosed garden, usually surrounded by covered walkways. Because such spaces are often featured in buildings that house religious orders, cloister can be used to mean "monastery" or "convent." In enclosed religious orders, monks and nuns withdraw from society to devote themselves to prayer and contemplation. In order to provide them with access to the outdoors while protecting them from contact with the secular world, the cloister became a common element of convents and monasteries. When used as a verb, cloister generally loses its religious connotation and means "to seclude" or "isolate." Don't get a lunch detention or you'll be cloistered in the classroom while all the other kids are running around outside.
Vocabulary lists containing cloister
A Midsummer Night's Dream
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"Macbeth" Vocabulary from Act III
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Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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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:
In recent decades, however, there has been a greater tendency for people to cloister inside.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026
The centre is described as a series of red brick "pavilions" housing care and social spaces, stitched together by a central timber "cloister".
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2023
Fourteen years later, Catholic women in Los Angeles raised funds to build the sisters a new cloister, chapel and office complex on the same site, designed by celebrated architect Wallace Neff.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2023
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — In 1964, hoping to erase its image as a privileged cloister for white rich families, Wesleyan University contacted 400 Black high school students from around the country to persuade them to apply.
From New York Times ● Jan. 15, 2023
Abbot Mortimer lay in the cloister gardens surrounded by his mice and woodland friends.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
It offers contemporary art, scary medieval weapons and Gothic cloisters.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2023
I was thrilled to get inside to feel and photograph all of this, as well as the cathedral’s cloisters, in the solitude of the faintest first rays.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2021
Once, when playing Shakespeare’s Richard III, he pasted pages of the script to pillars in the school’s cloisters and spent the performance running between them.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 13, 2019
The broader evidence also suggests that Japanese researchers are stepping out of their intellectual cloisters.
From Nature ● Mar. 19, 2019
The cloisters were once more free of strangers and the corridors cleared of beds and pallets.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
She picked Gita Kaur, whose grandmother had kept Gita virtually cloistered in the family house in Nairobi until she was 19.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 25, 2025
Journalists who work for institutions are so cloistered and shut down at this point.
From Slate ● Nov. 17, 2025
A vast blaze has torn through the historic Bernaga Monastery in northern Italy, the Italian fire service said Sunday, forcing the evacuation of 22 cloistered nuns.
From Barron's ● Oct. 12, 2025
Yet his work has never stayed cloistered within academia.
From Salon ● May 28, 2025
After Maria’s cloistered life at Waltha, Amsterdam must have felt like the center of the world.
From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman
Others focus on exploring values or on navigating the dynamics of a family-owned business, cloistering the kids in hotel conference rooms or Aspen compounds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
Both the paintings and the small gallery holding them feel cloistering yet claustrophobic.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 19, 2022
Also, reframe this into a gift of time—during this period of conscientious cloistering, as an opportunity to pursue talents and to “cultivate your garden.”
From Slate ● Mar. 19, 2020
And they say they have considered adding metal detectors, only to conclude that they are unnecessary and cloistering.
From New York Times ● Apr. 14, 2018
I hang up and run to the bathroom, steamy and cloistering.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
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.
