monastery

American  

[mon-uh-ster-ee] / ˈmɒn əˌstɛr i /

noun

plural

monasteries

1. a house or place of residence occupied by a community of persons, especially monks, living in seclusion under religious vows.

   Synonyms:

   lamasery, friary, priory, abbey, cloister

2. the community of persons living in such a place.

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monastery British  

/ ˌmɒnəˈstɪərɪəl, ˈmɒnəstərɪ, -strɪ /

noun

1. the residence of a religious community, esp of monks, living in seclusion from secular society and bound by religious vows

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Other Word Forms

• monasterial
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of monastery

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Late Latin monastērium, from Late Greek monastḗrion “monk house,” originally, “hermit's cell,” equivalent to monas-, variant stem of monázein “to be alone” + -tērion neuter adjective suffix denoting place; see mono-

Explanation

A monastery is the building where monks live while they’re practicing their religion. Some monasteries are occupied by hundreds of monks, and sometimes only one monk lives there all alone. Christians have a church, Jews have a synagogue, and monks have a monastery, which serves not only as their holy place of worship, but also where they eat and sleep. You’ll use the word mostly when referring to monks, but there are some monasteries for Catholic nuns. The Greek word monastērion means “a place to live alone,” and monks and nuns go to a monastery to focus on their religion in isolation, away from the rest of the world.

Example Sentences

Where dinosaur tracks coexist beside spooky rows of barracks left from a 16th-century monastery, there’s a spectacular view of coastline all the way back to the white spires of Lisbon.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026

The monastery, which was built in the 1950s, spans around 24,000 square feet, while the retreat center was added to the property in 1995, according to Mirr.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 24, 2026

At this site, about one third of individuals buried in lower status areas had tuberculosis, compared with 12% of those buried in the monastery or church.

From Science Daily • Mar. 13, 2026

When the BBC visited a monastery that had been at heart of Tibetan resistance in July last year, monks spoke of living under fear and intimidation.

From BBC • Mar. 12, 2026

The small patch of land in the monastery garden produced an overwhelming volume of data to analyze—twenty-eight thousand plants, forty thousand flowers, and nearly four hundred thousand seeds.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee