tabernacle
Americannoun
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any place or house of worship, especially one designed for a large congregation.
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(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.
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Ecclesiastical. an ornamental receptacle for the reserved Eucharist, now generally found on the altar.
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a canopied niche or recess, as for an image or icon.
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a temporary dwelling or shelter, as a tent or hut.
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a dwelling place.
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the human body as the temporary abode of the soul.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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(often capital) Old Testament
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the portable sanctuary in the form of a tent in which the ancient Israelites carried the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25–27)
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the Jewish Temple regarded as the shrine of the divine presence
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Judaism an English word for sukkah
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a meeting place for worship used by Mormons or Nonconformists
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a small ornamented cupboard or box used for the reserved sacrament of the Eucharist
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the human body regarded as the temporary dwelling of the soul
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RC Church a canopied niche or recess forming the shrine of a statue
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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
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
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
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:
“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
On a recent Sunday, he led chants in the tabernacle on the foundation’s farm located in Liberta’s lush agricultural district.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 2, 2023
The police said the tabernacle was pure gold, but a church program from 2013 said it was sterling silver and plated in 18-karat gold.
From New York Times ● Jun. 1, 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
"The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we have seen His glory."
From Christian Mysticism by Inge, William Ralph
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 Dearmer, Percy
Those hill-slopes had been covered with booths and tents, in which the mighty congregations tabernacled, whilst they waited on his words.
From John the Baptist by Meyer, F. B. (Frederick Brotherton)
Free from self-conceit or arrogance, a stranger to affectation or dissimulation, he was a pure, true man; the purest, loveliest spirit, ever tabernacled in the flesh.
From Henry of Ofterdingen: A Romance. by Hardenberg, Friedrich von
In the high carved stone pulpit are tabernacled recesses, once enclosing figures, but now containing 'royal badges and devices'; and both screen and pulpit were coloured and gilded, and are rather dimmed by time.
From Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts by Northcote, Rosalind
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 Bacon, Benjamin Wisner
Ah, there is no tabernacling here with Jesus, nor yet with Moses or Elias!
From Parish Papers by Macleod, Norman
We found some inhabitants tabernacling in our bedstead that annoyed us more than the musquitoes.
From Gleanings by the Way by Clark, John A.
The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was the God-Man tabernacling with men.
From Dawn of All by Benson, Robert Hugh
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 Conant, J. E. (Judson Eber)
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.
