columbarium
Americannoun
-
a sepulchral vault or other structure with recesses in the walls to receive the ashes of the dead.
-
any one of these recesses.
noun
-
another name for a dovecote
-
a vault having niches for funeral urns
-
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:
Explaining the columbarium, Chung says the "entire wall appears to be filled with grid-patterned storage compartments for remains".
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
Mei and Shing casually dismiss Angie’s insistence that Pat wanted to have her ashes scattered at sea, instead heeding the advice of their fortuneteller, arranging for a traditional ritual and internment in a columbarium.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 27, 2024
Frank Eugene Corder crashed a small plane onto the South Lawn of the White House in 1994 before also being placed in a columbarium.
From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2022
Ms. Morissette and partners purchased it in 1980 for $50,000 to use as a columbarium, state records show.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2022
The Campagna, the olive-orchards, the columbarium, fall back to their old places in the blurred type of Columella.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863 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
Another institution, that of columbaria, or ossaria, as they would more properly be called, owes its origin to the same cause.
From Pagan and Christian Rome by Lanciani, Rodolfo Amedeo
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.
