| 释义 |
ossuary|ˈɒsjuːərɪ|
[ad. late L. ossuārium, irreg. f. os, ossi- bone; ? after mortuārium mortuary. Cf. mod.F. ossuaire (1835 in Dict. Acad.).]
A receptacle for the bones of the dead; a bone-vault, charnel-house; a bone-urn.
1658Sir T. Browne Hydriot. 25 The earth had confounded the ashes of these Ossuaries. 1678Phillips (ed. 4), Ossuary, a Charnel-house or place where Dead-mens bones are kept. 1832G. Downes Lett. Cont. Countries I. 155 The church and castle occupy the same elevated site. Annexed to the former is a well-filled ossuary, or bone-house. 1865Lubbock Preh. Times v. (1878) 139 These chambered long barrows may have served as ossuaries. 1896Times 19 Mar. 3/6 Conveyed to an ossuary specially constructed in the new cemetery. 1899Baring-Gould Bk. of West I. x. 167 The dolmen..was the family or tribal ossuary.
b. transf. A bone-cave, or deposit formed largely of bones, belonging to late geological times.
1861Sir F. Palgrave Norm. & Eng. III. 329 Bringing the ossuary of the Kirkdale Cave within the period even of the last population of the wolds. 1862R. H. Patterson Ess. Hist. & Art 116 The caves and ossuaries of Franconia and Upper Saxony.
c. fig. That in which relics of the dead past are preserved.
1872O. W. Holmes Poet Breakf.-t. vi. 198, I love to go to his ossuary of dead transactions, as I would visit the catacombs of Rome or Paris.
d. attrib. or as adj. Of or for the deposit of the bones of the dead.
1857Wigley St. Charles Borromeo's Instr. Eccl. Build. xxvii. §5 This ossuary place or charnel house. 1859Jephson Brittany iv. 40 Charnel-houses or ossuary chapels. |