leprosarium means an isolated building or community used to house lepers, usually in permanent quarantine from the rest of society. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 89 out of 100.
leprosarium is pronounced /ˌlɛprə(ʊ)ˈsɛəɹi.əm/.
Why “leprosarium” is a great word
LEPROSARIUM — [Noun] An institution for the isolation and care of people afflicted with leprosy. From Medieval Latin leprōsārium, from leprōsus ("leprous") + -ārium ("-ary: place for"). First attested in English circa 1840–50. Unlike a "leper colony," which often implies a remote, self-sustaining settlement of exile, or a "sanatorium," a general retreat for chronic illness, a leprosarium denotes a formal architecture of medicalized quarantine. It is the low, whitewashed building at the end of a dusty road, the daily tolling of a separate bell for Mass, and the narrow pass-through where food was left and taken. Here, medicine and exile were once the same prescription—a geometry of ancient fear formalized in stone.
noun
- An isolated building or community used to house lepers, usually in permanent quarantine from the rest of society.“In the middle of the twelfth century, France had more than 2,000 leprosariums”