sanctum
Americannoun
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sanctums,
plural
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sancta
plural
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a sacred or holy place.
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an inviolably private place or retreat.
noun
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a sacred or holy place
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a room or place of total privacy or inviolability
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of sanctum
1570–80; noun use of neuter of Latin sānctus; see Sanctus
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:
We first meet her in her inner sanctum, her extremely girly bedroom in the depths of her extremely girly sorority, Delta Nu.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2026
She enters the mosh pit fearlessly, dodging flailing arms to two-step — a synchronized dance move that requires punching and running in place — unleashing her energy in the punk sanctum.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
At one point Neriya and her companions are ushered into the sanctum sanctorum of a corvid roost, where thousands if not millions of crows coexist in sophisticated collaboration.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
“We stand on the walls, sentinels of the inner sanctum, against the assault of AI slop,” Karp said in his letter to shareholders.
From Barron's ● May 4, 2026
To the side of the sanctum was a painted wooden sculpture.
From "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
The perfume, Lavs, is a concentrated version of the one he made to spritz on the papal garments before they were delivered to the Vatican’s inner sancta.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 15, 2017
Bunhill Fields has long fascinated historians and romantics alike and is considered the terra sancta of English Nonconformity.
From BBC ● Feb. 22, 2011
According to individual taste, one can greet it with a hosannah, a miserere nobis or a sancta simplicitas.
From Time Magazine Archive
On an indifferently argued staff paper he scribbles: "0 sancta sim-plicitas."
From Time Magazine Archive
"O sancta simplicitas!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and briefly and clearly he explained it to Levin.
From Anna Karenina by Garnett, Constance
She allows the camera into the sanctums of her tanning booth and facial treatment sessions, but there’s an exhibitionism in these moments instead of conveying honesty and openness.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2024
There’s still more: occult rites and ancient runes, high-altitude sanctums and acid-washed visuals, plus a bevy of out-there cameos that Raimi uses to poke fun at the elasticity of the multiverse.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 3, 2022
Schools can either be sanctums of knowledge or cesspools of intolerance.
From Slate ● Dec. 3, 2020
McMaster shows how military chiefs failed repeatedly to raise dissenting views about escalation, unable to penetrate the inner sanctums of the White House and meaningfully change the course of the war.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 24, 2017
Ever since I had set off by car through the wide golden fields of Orgoreyn four days ago, beginning my successful progress towards the inner sanctums of Mishnory, I had been missing something.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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.
