Definition of "charnel house" []

• A building, room, or vault in which the bones or bodies of the dead are placed; a charnel. (noun)
• A scene or place of great physical suffering and loss of life: The bombing turned the barracks into a charnel house. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The charnel house was near the north porch of the Cathedral, and stood on or near the site of the present Precentor's house."
• "Bishop Carpenter made a library in the charnel house chantry, and endowed it with £10 for a librarian."
• "He certainly smelled dead, the fetid stench of the charnel house emanated from him like a foul miasma of evil, as they say in the books."