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Sanctuary   /sˈæŋktʃuˌɛri/   Listen
noun
Sanctuary  n.  (pl. sanctuaries)  A sacred place; a consecrated spot; a holy and inviolable site. Hence, specifically:
(a)
The most retired part of the temple at Jerusalem, called the Holy of Holies, in which was kept the ark of the covenant, and into which no person was permitted to enter except the high priest, and he only once a year, to intercede for the people; also, the most sacred part of the tabernacle; also, the temple at Jerusalem.
(b)
(Arch.) The most sacred part of any religious building, esp. that part of a Christian church in which the altar is placed.
(c)
A house consecrated to the worship of God; a place where divine service is performed; a church, temple, or other place of worship.
(d)
A sacred and inviolable asylum; a place of refuge and protection; shelter; refuge; protection. "These laws, whoever made them, bestowed on temples the privilege of sanctuary." "The admirable works of painting were made fuel for the fire; but some relics of it took sanctuary under ground, and escaped the common destiny."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sanctuary" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Christian religion," as, "without a resident clergyman, an experience of fourteen years convinced him that all efforts would prove abortive. It had likewise become necessary to discontinue using the chapel as a school-room, since the doing so had been found to lessen the reverence due to the sanctuary in the minds both of the parents and children. A new schoolroom was therefore immediately built of the best stone, with two fireplaces, and a partition in the middle; over the door is the following inscription,—'The ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... crowding the canvas of the altar-piece, a justly-admired specimen of German religious art. Before it, dimly seen, two nuns knelt, types of conventual piety, absorbed in spiritual contemplation amid the tumult of the world's invasion of their sanctuary. Another door led to the garden. Here a fountain played into a great stone basin, and neat gravel walks intersected each other at sharp angles among flower-beds. The grass which lay around the maze of paths was sacred ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... peoples whose religion is barbarous, there were ways of obtaining sanctuary and many a man has saved his life by taking advantage of the tabus which secured their operation. No matter how desirous your host might be of murdering you, as long as you remained a guest under his roof you were safe, although were you only a few yards away from ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... that alone. It was all staircases and galleries and halls, black oak darknesses and sudden clear spaces and beautiful chintzy, silky rooms—lots of them, for Mrs. Wrackham—and books and busts and statues everywhere. And these were only his outer courts; inside them was his sanctuary, his library, and inside that, divided from it by curtains, was the Innermost, the shrine itself, and inside the shrine, veiled by his curtains, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... matches. He thought of flying to the Pasteur, but remembered that to do so, first he must get out of bed, and perhaps expose his bare legs to the assault of ghostly hands, and next that, to reach the chamber of Monsieur and Madame Boiset, he must pass through the sanctuary of the room occupied by Juliette. So he compromised by retiring under the clothes, much as a tortoise draws its ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard


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