columbarium
Americannoun
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a sepulchral vault or other structure with recesses in the walls to receive the ashes of the dead.
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any one of these recesses.
noun
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another name for a dovecote
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a vault having niches for funeral urns
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a hole in a wall into which a beam is inserted
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of columbarium
1840–50; < Latin: literally, a nesting box for pigeons, equivalent to columb ( a ) pigeon, dove + -ārium -ary
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:
There is also what appears to be a grey building that sits in the middle of the graveyard - likely to be a columbarium which houses funeral urns, says Chung.
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
Her remains are stored in one of a series of ornate lockers in the columbarium of a Buddhist temple in Hsinchu, second from the bottom, just a few feet away from my uncle, her son.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
At a columbarium, there is little to sweep and not enough space for elaborate altar spreads.
From New York Times ● Mar. 28, 2023
Cremated remains may be scattered, kept at home, buried in a cemetery or interred in a columbarium.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 29, 2022
Frequently the walls are pitted with the loculi of a columbarium, which, however, appear to be too small to receive cinerary urns and must be intended for some other purpose.
From How to Observe in Archaeology by Various
Small armies of landscapers tend to lush grass and rolling hills, where private roads with names like “Memory Lane” and “Baby Land” lead upward past maximalist mausoleums, columbaria and replica Renaissance statuary.
From New York Times ● Aug. 31, 2023
Last year the cemetery opened a new 27-acre section capable of holding about 27,000 remains in specially built close-packed, pre-dug graves and a new niche wall and columbaria.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 25, 2019
The 16,000 spaces in the new niche wall and columbaria are waiting.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 2, 2018
Singapore prefers columbaria, in which urns of cremated remains are stored in cavities on a wall.
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2017
Bordering upon this we found a whole hill-side honeycombed with columbaria.
From From the Oak to the Olive A Plain record of a Pleasant Journey by Howe, Julia Ward
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.
