charnel
[tʃɑːɹnəl]
Etymology
From Middle English charnel, from Old French charnel, carnel, from Late Latin carnāle (“graveyard”), from Latin carnālis, or possibly an alteration of Anglo-Norman charner, from Medieval Latin carnārium (“charnel”). Displaced Middle English fleshusse, from Old English flǣsċhūs.
charnel means of or relating to a charnel, deathlike, sepulchral. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 80 out of 100.
charnel is pronounced [tʃɑːɹnəl].
Why “charnel” is a great word
CHARNEL — [Adjective, Noun] Adjective: Relating to death, corpses, or burial places; sepulchral. Noun: A building or vault where dead bodies or bones are stored. From Middle English charnel, from Old French charnel (“fleshly, of the flesh”), from Late Latin carnāle (“graveyard”), neuter of Latin carnālis (“of the flesh”), from carō, carnis (“flesh”). First attested in English in the late 14th century. Unlike a mausoleum, which enshrines individual memory, or a mortuary, which temporarily houses the recently departed, a charnel is a democratic ossuary, a utilitarian library of the anonymous dead. It is the damp, chalky smell of stacked femurs; the geometric solemnity of a skull wall in a catacomb; the grim practicality of clearing old bones to make room for the new. It is architecture’s frankest admission that flesh is a leasehold, and bone its final, common currency.
adj
- Of or relating to a charnel, deathlike, sepulchral.“He murmured to himself with dull despair,
Here Faith died, poisoned by this charnel air.”
noun
- A chapel attached to a mortuary.
- A repository for dead bodies.“When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house return’d,
Was this demanded—if he yearn’d
To hear her weeping by his grave?”
- Part of a helm, now usually identified as the hinge (near the neck) by which the helm was secured to the breastplate.“The knight did as he was desired, and broke his spear twice on the very charnel of his helmet. It being now Sir William Cecil's turn, each knight charged his spear directly towards the other's head, and galloping on, both lances[…]”