adyt

plural adyts

1. archaicpoeticThe innermost sanctum of a temple, in which oracles are announced.

   […] they afterwards broke a matter of twenty cubits, and attempted with their own hands to put the adyt and sacred places in a blaze.

   1733, Flavius Josephus, The Works, page 708

   3 more examples

   Forever freed The bondage of the flesh, they tread, at last, The inmost aisles of this elysian grove, To enter in the vasty House of Dreams, Unto the adyt of the mystic fane, Where, in a golden drapery of light, Is Beauty shrined, supernal, chaste, […]

   1907, William Bittle Wells, Lute Pease, The Pacific Monthly: A Magazine of Education and Progress, page 709

   But he refused to abandon his question while there was yet a room, an adyt, a tower to be searched, or vault uncovered in shadowed depths. He called forth loudly again and again. But none responded to his words save the rats who scurried to seek out other places of hiding, vanishing into the shadows […]

   1980, James William Hjort, Ebon roses, jewelled skulls, page 34

   The door was open and there were more outside. He didn't dare look. His mind felt fogged, dulled by something, a drug. Cretus wasn't sure. Something reeled drunkenly in the adyt of his mind, a vertigo. Had it been that simple? Had it worked?

   2006, M. A. Foster, The Book of The Ler