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Definition of "cloister" []

  • A covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle. (noun)
  • A place, especially a monastery or convent, devoted to religious seclusion. (noun)
  • Life in a monastery or convent. (noun)
  • A secluded, quiet place. (noun)
  • To shut away from the world in or as if in a cloister; seclude. (verb-transitive)

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.

Use "cloister" in a sentence
  • "IV. iii.280 (107,1) [He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister] I know not that _cloister_, though it may etymologically signify _any_"
  • "Her design style was said to be greatly influenced by the days in cloister:"
  • "When he thought of the great Mongibello that he never would see, and of Donna Elisa, who would never come again, and of the school, and of the shut-in cloister garden, and of a whole restricted life!"