cloister
/ˈklɔɪstə/
Etymology
Recorded since about 1300 as Middle English cloistre, borrowed from Old French cloistre, clostre, or via Old English clauster, both from Medieval Latin claustrum (“portion of monastery closed off to laity”), from Latin claustrum (“place shut in, bar, bolt, enclosure”), a derivation of the past participle of claudere (“to close”). Doublet of claustrum.
cloister means A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that surround a quadrangle; especially:; such an arcade in a monastery;. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 79 out of 100.
cloister is pronounced /ˈklɔɪstə/.
Why “cloister” is a great word
CLOISTER — [Noun, Verb] As a noun, a covered walkway with an open colonnade surrounding a courtyard in a religious house, or the secluded community itself; as a verb, to seclude or confine. From Middle English cloistre (c. 1300), from Old French cloistre, from Medieval Latin claustrum ("portion of a monastery closed to the laity"), from Latin claustrum ("enclosure, bolt"), from claudere ("to close"). Unlike a "monastery," which denotes the entire complex, or the general act to "seclude," to cloister implies a voluntary, architecturally-defined retreat. It is the cool, shadowed arcade pacing the sunlit garth; the silent, deliberate turning of pages in a scriptorium; the high wall that keeps the vineyard in and the cacophony out—a chosen enclosure where one closes a door not in fear, but in pursuit of a different order.
noun
- A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that surround a quadrangle; especially:; such an arcade in a monastery;
- A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that surround a quadrangle; especially:; such an arcade fitted with representations of the stages of Christ's Passion.
- A place, especially a monastery or convent, devoted to religious seclusion.
- The monastic life.
verb
- To become a Roman Catholic religious.
- To confine in a cloister, voluntarily or not.
- To deliberately withdraw from worldly things.
- To provide with a cloister or cloisters.“The architect cloistered the college just like the monastery which founded it.”
- To protect or isolate.“Unique condo cloistered on top of hill.”