tabernacle

American  

[tab-er-nak-uhl] / ˈtæb ərˌnæk əl /

noun

• tabernacles
  plural

1. any place or house of worship, especially one designed for a large congregation.

2. (often initial capital letter) the portable sanctuary in use by the Israelites from the time of their wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt to the building of the Temple in Jerusalem by Solomon. Exodus 25–27.

3. Ecclesiastical. an ornamental receptacle for the reserved Eucharist, now generally found on the altar.

4. a canopied niche or recess, as for an image or icon.

5. a temporary dwelling or shelter, as a tent or hut.

6. a dwelling place.

7. the human body as the temporary abode of the soul.

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verb (used with or without object)

tabernacled, tabernacling

1. to place or dwell in, or as if in, a tabernacle.

tabernacle British  

/ ˈtæbəˌnækəl /

noun

1. (often capital) Old Testament

   1. the portable sanctuary in the form of a tent in which the ancient Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25–27)

   2. the Jewish Temple regarded as the shrine of the divine presence

2. Judaism an English word for sukkah

3. a meeting place for worship used by Mormons or Nonconformists

4. a small ornamented cupboard or box used for the reserved sacrament of the Eucharist

5. the human body regarded as the temporary dwelling of the soul

6. RC Church a canopied niche or recess forming the shrine of a statue

7. nautical a strong framework for holding the foot of a mast stepped on deck, allowing it to be swung down horizontally to pass under low bridges, etc

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• tabernacular
  adjective
• untabernacled
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• tabernacles
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of tabernacle

First recorded in 1200–50; Middle English, from Late Latin tabernāculum “tent,” equivalent to tabern(a) “hut, stall, inn” + -āculum, probably extracted from hibernāculum “winter quarters”; see origin at tavern, hibernaculum.

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Explanation

A tabernacle was originally a Jewish place of worship, like a moveable tent. Synagogues and temples are tabernacles. Tabernacle has now branched out and can refer to a place of worship for Christians, too. The tabernacle has a long history in the Jewish faith. Originally, a tabernacle was a tent said to contain the Ark of the Covenant. The word comes from the Latin tabernaculum for "tent.” Later, it came to mean a place Jews worship, like Christians worship in a church. Like a church, a tabernacle is a holy place where you will find people worshiping. These days, the word tabernacle is used by others, like in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, for example.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tabernacle tabernacles tabernacled tabernacling

“The Los Angeles Public Library. The go-to tabernacle of literacy and lifesaving life hacks. A passport to wonder and whimsy and then some,” Bui says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2024

Its location in the nation’s capital is no accident: On its website, the center boasts that it is the closest tabernacle to the White House.

From Salon ● Oct. 12, 2023

Beside the difference of language, in the Latin Mass the priest faces away from the congregation and instead faces the tabernacle at the front of the church where the Eucharist is kept.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 24, 2022

She’s said it on her knees before her church’s gold tabernacle and slumped in the embrace of her living room sofa.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 24, 2022

It was like his thoughts as he moved about the tabernacle in which his life had been spent; the tabernacle that he hated, yet loved and feared.

From "Go Tell It on the Mountain" by James Baldwin

Soon after, Romney immigrated to the U.S., eventually joining the Mormons in Utah, where he served as an architect, designing temples, tabernacles, and the homes of the church’s second prophet Brigham Young.

From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2023

The heavy concrete rooftops and domes of churches across the southern peninsula are now caved in, tabernacles crooked or buried under rubble, walls marbled with deep cracks.

From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2021

This is a kind of perfection created under the auspices of the old model: high priests, secret tabernacles, inherited authorities, management by diktat.

From New York Times ● Apr. 30, 2015

May the heart of Jesus’s most Blessed Sacrament be praised, adored and loved with grateful affection in every moment in all the tabernacles in the world, even till the end of time.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 29, 2011

There was something solemn and reverent about the way they huddled within those shadowed niches, their voices soft enough to be indistinct, as though they were praying in tabernacles.

From "The City Beautiful" by Aden Polydoros

We do not know whether the hawk which represented Horus, and in which the soul of the god tabernacled for a time, was distinguished from other hawks by special marks.

From The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia by A. H. (Archibald Henry) Sayce

But of this point no more can at present be said: our design being to speak of him only as he lived and conversed in his holy humanity, while he tabernacled upon the earth.

From True Christianity by Johann Arndt

The tabernacled stalls, which eighteenth-century vandalism had respected, vanished utterly before the restoring mania of the Gothic revivalist, even their traditional position and order being changed.

From Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See by Percy Dearmer

While the body is the same as that in which the soul tabernacled, it will undergo transformation.

From Exposition of the Apostles Creed by James Dodds

"The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we have seen His glory."

From Christian Mysticism by William Ralph Inge

So again and again Synoptic scenes are retouched and new scenes are added in a way to present a consistent picture of the "tabernacling" of the pre-existent Son of God in human flesh.

From The Making of the New Testament by Benjamin Wisner Bacon

It also makes Him God tabernacling in the flesh; it makes Him the Second Person of the Triune God; it declares in so many words that He is God.

From The Church, the Schools and Evolution by J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant

We found some inhabitants tabernacling in our bedstead that annoyed us more than the musquitoes.

From Gleanings by the Way by John A. Clark

The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was the God-Man tabernacling with men.

From Dawn of All by Robert Hugh Benson

Ah, there is no tabernacling here with Jesus, nor yet with Moses or Elias!

From Parish Papers by Norman Macleod

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