ossuary

[osh-oo-er-ee, os-]

See more synonyms for ossuary on Thesaurus.com

noun, plural os·su·ar·ies.

a place or receptacle for the bones of the dead.

Also ossuarium.

Origin of ossuary

1650–60; < Late Latin ossuārium, variant of ossārium, equivalent to oss- (stem of os) bone + -ārium -ary

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for ossuary

vessel, container, receptacle, vault

Examples from the Web for ossuary

Contemporary Examples of ossuary

The French cemetery at Notre Dame de Lorette has 20,000 named graves and an ossuary with 20,000 unknown dead.
Geoff Dyer's 'The Missing of the Somme' Reconsidered
Louisa Thomas
November 11, 2011

Historical Examples of ossuary

The Magdalenians have passed through this ossuary and have drawn out all the canine teeth to make ornaments of them.
Men of the Old Stone Age
Henry Fairfield Osborn
Ossuary, os′ū-ar-i, n. a place where the bones of the dead are deposited: a charnel-house.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R)
Various
I love to go to his ossuary of dead transactions, as I would visit the catacombs of Rome or Paris.
The Poet at the Breakfast Table
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
After a time the body is taken up, the bones cleaned, and deposited in an ossuary called the Quiogozon.
A further contribution to the study of the mortuary customs of the North American Indians
H. C. Yarrow
Bonaparte stopped near the Ossuary, and desired to be shown the spot where the battle of Morat was fought.
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

British Dictionary definitions for ossuary

ossuary

noun plural -aries

any container for the burial of human bones, such as an urn or vault

Word Origin for ossuary

C17: from Late Latin ossuārium, from Latin os bone

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for ossuary

"urn for the bones of the dead," 1650s, from Late Latin ossuarium "charnel house," from neuter of Latin ossuarius "of bones," from Latin os (plural ossua) "bone" (see osseous) on model of mortuarium.