chapel
/ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Forms chapels chapeling chapelling chapeled chapelled
- noun (especially Christianity) A place of worship, smaller than or subordinate to a church.
- noun A place of worship in another building or within a civil institution such as a larger church, airport, prison, monastery, school, etc.; often primarily for private prayer.
- noun (UK) A place of worship of a denomination not in conformity with the Church of England, usually Protestant; for example, of Nonconformist or Dissenter congregations.
- noun A funeral home, or a room in one for holding funeral services.
- noun (UK) A trade union branch in printing or journalism.
- noun A printing office.
- noun A choir of singers, or an orchestra, attached to the court of a prince or nobleman.
- adjective (Wales) Describing a person who attends a nonconformist chapel. “The village butcher is chapel.”
- verb (nautical, transitive) To cause (a ship taken aback in a light breeze) to turn or make a circuit so as to recover, without bracing the yards, the same tack on which she had been sailing.
- verb (obsolete, transitive) To deposit or inter in a chapel; to enshrine.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English chapele, chapel, from Old French chapele, from Late Latin cappella (“little cloak; chapel”), diminutive of cappa (“cloak, cape”). Doublet of capelle. Displaced native Old English bēdhūs.
(printing office): Said to be because printing was first carried on in England in a chapel near Westminster Abbey.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A subordinate place of worship; as, (a) a small church, often a private foundation, as for a memorial; (b) a small building attached to a church; (c) a room or recess in a church, containing an altar.
- noun A place of worship not connected with a church; as, the chapel of a palace, hospital, or prison.
- verb To deposit or inter in a chapel; to enshrine. [Obs.] Beau. & Fl.
- verb To cause (a ship taken aback in a light breeze) so to turn or make a circuit as to recover, without bracing the yards, the same tack on which she had been sailing.
Etymology [OF. chapele, F. chapelle, fr. LL. capella, orig., a short cloak, hood, or cowl; later, a reliquary, sacred vessel, chapel; dim. of cappa, capa, cloak, cape, cope; also, a covering for the head. The chapel where St. Martin's cloak was preserved as a precious relic, itself came to be called capella, whence the name was applied to similar paces of worship, and the guardian of this cloak was called capellanus, or chaplain. See Cap, and cf. Chaplain., Chaplet.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “chapel”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details