columbarium

plural columbariums · plural columbaria

1. historicalA columbary, especially a large and architecturally impressive one for housing a large colony of pigeons or doves, such as those in ancien régime France.

   Meronym: pigeonhole

   4 more examples

   Near-synonyms: dovecote, pigeon loft

   Their sides present the well-known appearance of the Roman columbaria (dove-cotes), but with the important difference, that they are adapted to contain coffins instead of urns, the holes being about 2 feet square and 6 feet deep.

   1885, Philip Smith, History of the World from the Creation to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, volume 2

   Doves were culticly protected; great towers were built for them in which they could nest; they were called columbaria (columba is the Latin word for dove).

   1979, Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman, page 61

   Fish ponds were stocked with netted fish during the summer as a source of protein and dove cotes, or as the Romans called them, 'columbariums', were another.

   2008, Stanley Graham, Barnoldswich, page 34

   Synonyms: dovecote, pigeon loft

2. A pigeonhole in such a dovecote.
3. A building, a vault or a similar place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns containing cremated remains.

   The columbarium (vaults lined with recesses for cinerary urns) in the form of a grotto (a cave-like structure) is the centerpiece of the Elks plot.

   2004, Douglas Keister, Stories in Stone, Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 13

   1 more example

   We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science. Just as the bee simultaneously constructs cells and fills them with honey, so science works unceasingly on this great columbarium of concepts, the graveyard of perceptions.

   1873, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, anonymous translator, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, translation of original in German, part 2

   Synonyms: cinerarium

4. A niche in such a building for housing urns.