refectory
Americannoun
-
refectories
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of refectory
1475–85; < Late Latin refectōrium, equivalent to Latin refec-, combining form of reficere to renew ( see refect) + -tōrium -tory 2
Explanation
A fancy word for a dining hall, or a place for communal meals, is a refectory. It is usually used to describe a dining hall in a religious institution, like where monks eat together. The word refectory comes from the Latin word reficere which means "to restore, renew." A meal together is a great way of restoring unity to a group. Nothing renews community like a great dinner, and the conversation that occurs around it. Lunch in your school's refectory? Maybe not so much.
Vocabulary lists containing refectory
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Jane Eyre
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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:
What is the purpose of a room called a refectory?
From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2023
The painting, in oil on canvas, was commissioned by her own convent of Santa Caterina; once completed, it was hung on the nuns’ refectory wall.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 19, 2019
The princess sees her responsibility as feeding hundreds of hungry people in her refectory every day and being supportive of increasingly isolated priests.
From New York Times ● Dec. 7, 2018
Another Jesuit, Father Michael O'Sullivan, met him briefly in the refectory one evening during that visit.
From BBC ● Apr. 2, 2018
Rain was falling outside the small, high windows, tiptoeing on the black branches and cold soil when we returned to the refectory.
From "The Inquisitor's Tale" by Adam Gidwitz
Designers are conjuring all kinds of nonkitchen-y arenas, like the refectories of old boarding schools, a signature of Christopher Peacock, the English-born kitchen designer once known for his all-white offerings.
From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2017
The refectories, kitchens, and the cells of the monks exceed in point of antiquity anything of the kind in Europe.
From Visits To Monasteries in the Levant by Robert Curzon
The consciousness of it helped her all through the long meal, when the noise of laughter and conversation bewildered her, after so many years of convent refectories and silence, and her solitary dinners in Rome.
From Consequences by E. M. Delafield
At the end of the long dining-hall, beyond an ikonostas, was a church, as is customary in these refectories.
From Russian Rambles by Isabel Florence Hapgood
The sports were more interesting than refectories and dormitories, but it seemed a little churlish to refuse and we went together.
From Memoirs of My Dead Life by George (George Augustus) Moore
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
