Definition of "scriptorium" []

• A room in a monastery set aside for the copying, writing, or illuminating of manuscripts and records. (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.

• "This den -- he spoke of it as his 'scriptorium' -- had a window looking out upon an elevated railway, along which the trains of the London, Chatham, and Dover line banged and rattled all day long."
• "The scriptorium was a great writing school too, and the rules of the art of writing which were laid down there were so rigidly and severely adhered to, that to this day it is difficult to decide at a glance whether a book was written in St. Alban's or St. Edmund's Abbey."
• "Sometimes the scriptorium was a large hall or studio, with various desks about; sometimes the North walk of the cloister was divided into little cells, called "carrels," in each of which was room for the writer, his desk, and a little shelf for his inks and colours."