imaret

plural imarets

1. historicalarchitectureAn Ottoman soup kitchen built between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries, often part of a larger complex or waqf.

   He lived in an elegant stone house, a part of the Imaret of Haseki Sultan.

   2006, T. Byram Karasu, Of God and Madness, page 217

   2 more examples

   Yıldırım Bayezid had located his imaret in the opposite direction, some two kilometers to the east of the city. Mehmed I chose a site closer to the center, between the imarets of Orhan Gazi and Yıldırım Bayezid.

   1996, Aptulla Kuran, “A Spatial Study of Three Ottoman Capitals: Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul”, in Gülru Necipoğlu, editor, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islam World, volume XIII, Harvard University, page 118

   It was originally built as a zaviye, or hostel, for members of the Ahi Brotherhood of Virtue; later it became an imaret, serving free food to the poor of Iznik.

   2000, John Freely, The Companion Guide to Istanbul and Around the Marmara, page 383