ossuary
Americannoun
-
ossuaries
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ossuary
1650–60; < Late Latin ossuārium, variant of ossārium, equivalent to oss- (stem of os ) bone + -ārium -ary
Vocabulary lists containing ossuary
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:
Those concepts interlace in his ossuary, enlivened when he plays his tenderly kept records, remnants of human joy all but lost to a Rage pestilence.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
Southern California has always been an ossuary of failed publications done in by apathetic readership, clueless owners or a combination of both.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
He was buried in a specially designed crypt in the cathedral which he commissioned that will be the resting place of all future archbishops after the remains of their predecessors are transferred to an ossuary.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 12, 2022
I approach Place Denfert-Rochereau, where, if inclined, one can drop into the Paris Catacombs, the underground ossuary housing the bones of some 6 million souls.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2022
Ossā′rium, an ossuary; Oss′ēin, the organic basis of bone; Oss′elet, a hard substance growing on the inside of a horse's knee; Oss′icle, a small bone.—adjs.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various
Lasting art can be mysterious and often misunderstood; this can also be said of ossuaries.
From Salon ● Jan. 23, 2026
His “Ruins of Rome” etchings depict landmarks like the Pantheon and the Castel Sant’Angelo, but its most famous images show rubble-strewn gardens and crumbling bridges, and tricorn-hatted gentlemen wandering through collapsed temples and overgrown ossuaries.
From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2021
Gisotti told local Vatican media on Saturday that the two ossuaries are in “an area adjacent to the princesses' tombs” and that the works are carried out as “according to international protocols,” the BBC reported.
From Fox News ● Jul. 20, 2019
During that search, the two ossuaries were discovered under a trapdoor in the floor of a nearby building.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2019
This would explain the huge ossuaries found in regions so widely separated.
From Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples by N. D'Anvers
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.
