CLOISTER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Cloister

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/klˈɔɪstər/ Listen

noun

Cloister n.

1.

An inclosed place. (Obs.)

2.

A covered passage or ambulatory on one side of a court; (pl.) The series of such passages on the different sides of any court, esp. that of a monastery or a college. "But let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloister's pale."

3.

A monastic establishment; a place for retirement from the world for religious duties. "Fitter for a cloister than a crown."

Cloister garth (Arch.), the garden or open part of a court inclosed by the cloisters.

Synonyms: Cloister, Monastery, Nunnery, Convent, Abbey, Priory. Cloister and convent are generic terms, and denote a place of seclusion from the world for persons who devote their lives to religious purposes. They differ is that the distinctive idea of cloister is that of seclusion from the world, that of convent, community of living. Both terms denote houses for recluses of either sex. A cloister or convent for monks is called a monastery; for nuns, a nunnery. An abbey is a convent or monastic institution governed by an abbot or an abbess; a priory is one governed by a prior or a prioress, and is usually affiliated to an abbey.

verb

Cloister v. t. (past & past part. cloistered; pres. part. cloistering) To confine in, or as in, a cloister; to seclude from the world; to immure. "None among them are thought worthy to be styled religious persons but those that cloister themselves up in a monastery."

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Etymology of 'Cloister'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cloister" Quotes from Famous Books

... looked as if she had stepped out of a cloister into an unknown world, and the dog added to the ...

— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... calling, though I firmly believe that by far the greater number lead a life of privation and virtue. Their conduct can, to a certain extent, be judged of by the world; but the pale nuns, devout and pure, immured in the cloister for life, kneeling before the shrine, or chanting hymns in the silence of the night, a veil both truly and allegorically must shade their virtues or their failings. The nuns of the Santa Teresa and of other strict orders, who live sparingly, profess ...

— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... back the inroads of the Mercians and even conquer Strathclyde, before the anarchy of his own kingdom he could only fling down his sceptre and seek a refuge in the cloister of Lindisfarne. From the death of Baeda the history of Northumbria became in fact little more than a wild story of lawlessness and bloodshed. King after king was swept away by treason and revolt, the country fell into the hands of its turbulent nobles, its very fields lay ...

— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... hear the same complaints. "What was the use of our having lived in a cloister, twenty, thirty, forty years; what was the sense of having vowed chastity, poverty, obedience; what good are all the masses and canonical hours that we read; what profit is there in fasting, praying, ...

— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... had again implored him not yet to take; she feared that he would, she marvelled at his abstaining; the old wheel revolved, as it ever does with creatures that wait for circumstances to bring the change they cannot work for themselves; and once more the two fell asunder. She had thoughts of the cloister. Her venerable relative died joining her hand to Prince Marko's; she was induced to think of marriage. An illness laid her prostrate; she contemplated ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

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