columbarium

noun

Definition of columbariumnext
as in mausoleum

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of columbarium Later, the victims’ ashes were interred in a modest columbarium that the priest had built in a Catholic cemetery. — Sheila Coronel, The Atlantic, 13 Mar. 2026 And the columbarium would have been open to all Irvine residents, with priority given to veterans. — Victoria Le, Oc Register, 16 Jan. 2026 When the base closed, the land passed to the city of Alameda, but one corner was retained by the VA to build a new 158,000-square-foot outpatient clinic and columbarium as a final resting place for Bay Area veterans. — John Ramos, CBS News, 16 Dec. 2025 And columbaria – the plural for columbarium – are on the rise in the Diocese of Nashville. — Laura L. Davis, Nashville Tennessean, 27 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for columbarium
Recent Examples of Synonyms for columbarium
  1. mausoleum
  2. crypt
  3. vault
  4. catacomb
  5. tomb
  6. cemetery
  7. charnel
  8. burial
Noun
  • The shovel now hangs above a massive fireplace in Digger’s mansion, one of those lavish, sprawling estates that the wealthy build as monuments to themselves and which invariably become mausoleums.
    — Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2026
  • Clad in his go-to outfit of silk pajamas and snakeskin boots, Digger runs his empire from an estate that’s more mausoleum than mansion.
    — David Fear, Rolling Stone, 29 Sep. 2026
Definition of mausoleum
Noun
  • Michael the Lawyer and Ben the Barrel Racer go into the third crypt (Alan calls them gay Lara Crofts) and have the option of grabbing $15,000 in gold or $5,000 and a clue about the Traitors.
    — Alice Burton, Vulture, 25 Sep. 2026
  • For safe-keeping, the flag is displayed in very low light, giving the chamber a sacred feel, like a cathedral crypt.
    — Alec MacGillis, ProPublica, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of crypt
Noun
  • For now, analysts have Nike chief executive officer Elliott Hill’s promise that the team will introduce more than a dozen footwear styles that are all new instead of going back to the vault and doing old retro shoes.
    — Vicki M. Young, Footwear News, 5 Oct. 2026
  • The company has built an operating model that runs like an active business rather than a passive vault.
    — Camila Grigera Naón, Fortune, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of vault
Noun
  • During the tournament, access to the space, which is taking over a catacomb once used by players for warmups, has been floated at $120,000 per person.
    — Ben Ryder Howe, Curbed, 21 Aug. 2026
  • But passing motorists largely knew nothing of the collection of handmade replica of catacombs, Biblical scenes and Israelite villages beneath it.
    — Don Stacom, Hartford Courant, 16 Aug. 2026
Definition of catacomb
Noun
  • But there is very little archaeological evidence available, given that many of the earliest Egyptian tombs were plundered and/or hastily excavated.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 5 Oct. 2026
  • Surviving Etruscan painted tombs in towns such as Tarquinia, Chiusi and Orvieto are known for their dynamic scenes of music, feasting and the afterlife.
    — Jacqueline Ortoleva, Scientific American, 3 Oct. 2026
Definition of tomb
Noun
  • This decline is often captured sentimentally in memoirs about the Jewish South of a bygone era or photographs of Jewish cemeteries in various states of disrepair.
    — Ashley Walters, The Conversation, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Historical and archaeological investigations showed the area overlapped with the site of the former Sacramento County Hospital cemetery, which operated from the 1880s to the 1920s, officials said.
    — Darrell Smith, Sacbee.com, 30 Sep. 2026
Definition of cemetery
Noun
  • One is a charnel house dominated by Daniel Day-Lewis’s Bill the Butcher, a man with unnerving knife skills.
    — New York Times, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2026
  • This was also the case in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which abandoned the novel’s complex (and, importantly, entertaining) moral quandaries in favor of a clock tower colossus doubling as a steam punk charnel house.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 25 Feb. 2026
Definition of charnel
Noun
  • Campbell cautioned that this doesn’t mean that the hundreds of other burials in these areas were also victims of human sacrifice.
    — Jack Guy, CNN Money, 7 Oct. 2026
  • This particular set of remains—46 crania stored at Cambridge University—came from the Umm el-Qaab cemetery, which contains subsidiary burials presumed to be retainers of deceased First Dynasty rulers.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of burial

Browse Nearby Words

columbaria
columbarium
column
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Cite this Entry

“Columbarium.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/columbarium. Accessed 10 Oct. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on columbarium

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about columbarium

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