columbarium

English

A wall of a columbarium (3)

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin columbārium, from columba (“pigeon”) +‎ -ārium (“place for”).

Noun

columbarium (plural columbariums or columbaria)

1. (historical) A large, sometimes architecturally impressive building for housing a large colony of pigeons or doves, particularly those of ancien regime France.

   Synonym: dovecote

   • 1885, Philip Smith, History of the World from the Creation to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, volume 2:

     Their sides present the well-known appearance of the Roman columbaria (dove-cotes), but with the important difference, that they are adapted to contain coffins instead of urns, the holes being about 2 feet square and 6 feet deep.

   • 1979, Leonard Swidler, Biblical Affirmations of Woman, page 61:

     Doves were culticly protected; great towers were built for them in which they could nest; they were called columbaria (columba is the Latin word for dove).

   • 2008, Stanley Graham, Barnoldswich, page 34:

     Fish ponds were stocked with netted fish during the summer as a source of protein and dove cotes, or as the Romans called them, 'columbariums', were another.

2. A pigeonhole in such a dovecote.
3. A building, a vault or a similar place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns containing cremated remains.

   Synonym: cinerarium

   • 1873, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, anonymous translator, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, translation of original in German, part 2:

     We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science. Just as the bee simultaneously constructs cells and fills them with honey, so science works unceasingly on this great columbarium of concepts, the graveyard of perceptions.

   • 2004, Douglas Keister, Stories in Stone, Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 13:

     The columbarium (vaults lined with recesses for cinerary urns) in the form of a grotto (a cave-like structure) is the centerpiece of the Elks plot.

4. A niche in such a building for housing urns.

Translations

a building for housing a large colony of pigeons or doves

• Catalan: colomar m
• Dutch: duivenhuis n, columbarium (nl) n
• German: Taubenhaus (de) n, Taubenschlag (de) n, Kolumbarium (de) n, Columbarium (de) n
• Greek: περιστερώνας (el) m (peristerónas)

  Ancient: περιστερεών m (peristereṓn)

• Ido: kolumbario (io)
• Irish: colmlann f
• Italian: colombario (it) m
• Latin: columbarium n
• Persian: کبوترخانه (fa) (kabutarxâne)
• Romanian: porumbar (ro) n
• Russian: голубя́тня (ru) f (golubjátnja)
• Spanish: palomar m
• Swedish: duvslag (sv) n
• Ukrainian: голубни́к m (holubnýk)
• Welsh: colomendy m

a place for the respectful and usually public storage of cinerary urns

• Catalan: columbari m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 納骨塔／纳骨塔 (nàgǔtǎ)

• Dutch: columbarium (nl) n
• Finnish: uurnaholvi, kolumbaario (fi)
• French: columbarium (fr) m
• German: Urnenhalle f, Kolumbarium (de) n, Columbarium (de) n
• Greek: τεφροφυλάκιο n (tefrofylákio)
• Ido: kolumbario (io)
• Italian: colombario (it) m
• Japanese: 納骨堂 (のうこつどう, nōkotsudō)
• Polish: kolumbarium (pl) n
• Romanian: columbar (ro) n
• Russian: колумба́рий (ru) m (kolumbárij)
• Spanish: columbario m
• Swedish: kolumbarium (sv) n
• Turkish: kolumbaryum
• Ukrainian: колумба́рій m (kolumbárij)

Further reading

• columbarium on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin columbārium.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌkoː.lʏmˈbaː.ri.ʏm/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: co‧lum‧ba‧ri‧um

Noun

columbarium n (plural columbaria or columbariums)

1. (historical) vault for funerary urns, columbarium
2. dovecote, columbarium

   Synonyms: duivenhuis, duiventil

French

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

columbarium m (plural columbariums)

1. columbarium

Further reading

• “columbarium”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Etymology

From columba (“dove”) +‎ -ārium (“place for”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ko.lumˈbaː.ri.um/, [kɔɫ̪ʊmˈbäːriʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ko.lumˈba.ri.um/, [kolumˈbäːrium]

Noun

columbārium n (genitive columbāriī or columbārī); second declension

1. dovecote, birdhouse for domestic pigeons
2. (architecture) a hole for a horizontal member such as a joist or rafter; a gain or mortise
3. a hole in the side of a waterwheel near its axle, where the water lifted by the wheel exits
4. (nautical) an opening for oars in the side of a vessel; an oarlock
5. an underground chamber for interring cremated remains, with niches for the urns of ashes

Declension

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	columbārium	columbāria
Genitive	columbāriī columbārī1	columbāriōrum
Dative	columbāriō	columbāriīs
Accusative	columbārium	columbāria
Ablative	columbāriō	columbāriīs
Vocative	columbārium	columbāria

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

References

• “columbarium”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• columbarium in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “columbarium”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “columbarium”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin