cloister

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English cloistre,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French cloistre (“monastery, convent; enclosure”),^[5][6][7] earlier clostre,^[6][4][7] from Latin claustrum (“bar, bolt, lock; enclosed place”),^[6][5][8] which came to mean a monastery or a room in one in the Middle Ages.^[7][9][5] The Latin noun is formed from clausus (“closed”), the past participle of claudō (“to close”), the source of close, with an instrumental suffix.^[6][10][8] The change of vowel in French is put down to the influence of Old French cloison (“partition”),^[4][7][9] and Klein, Partridge and Dictionary.com call the French word a blend with it.^[3][11][12] Weekley instead posited Vulgar Latin *claustrium.^[13] The Anglo-Norman noun is recorded from 1155.^[14] Old English had already taken clauster and clūstor directly from the Latin,^[6][5][15] and the same source gave Dutch klooster, German Kloster and Polish klasztor.^[5] The verb is from the noun,^[5][7] though the OED also allows French cloistrer.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A place of religious seclusion, a monastery or convent: before 1225.^[7][2] Etymonline says the early 13th century.^[5] The OED, in an entry not fully revised, has this sense only from 1340, in the Ayenbite.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Ayto traces the line from "enclosure" to a place of religious seclusion, then to a covered walkway within a monastic building.^[8] Weekley notes that French has cloître for a cathedral close but that the sense of an arcaded walk developed in English.^[13] The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, says the first purpose of such walks was to let monks take exercise and recreation.^[5] The word later spread to similar walks in colleges and other large buildings.^[6][5] Chaucer used it seven times, for a monastery or an enclosed place,^[16] once of the womb.^[6] The general sense of an enclosed space is now obsolete.^[9][6][10] The verb has the same religious and general uses, shutting someone away in a convent or in any retirement;^[6][5] Johnson (1755) defines it as to shut up in a religious house and to confine, and the noun first as "a religious retirement".^[17] The adjective cloistered, secluded or sheltered, is dated by the Shorter Oxford to the late 16th century.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1225 – a place of religious seclusion.^[7][2]
• before 1300 – a covered walk or arcade.^[7] Etymonline says about 1300,^[5] and the OED's first quotation is from c. 1400.^[6]
• c. 1300 – an enclosed space.^[6] Barnhart dates it to about 1380.^[7]
• c. 1386 – the womb, in Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale; obsolete by 1539.^[6]
• c. 1408 – verb, implied in cloistered, to shut up or seclude.^[7]
• c. 1540 – a similar walk attached to other buildings.^[6]
• 1581 – verb, to shut up in any seclusion, in Mulcaster.^[6][9]
• 1591 – verb, to place in a monastic house.^[6]
• 1625 – verb, to surround with a cloister, in Bacon.^[6]
• 1781 – the cloister, monastic life, in Gibbon.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A covered walk along a wall, open on the inner side through an arcade or colonnade and usually running round a courtyard in a monastery, college or cathedral.^[18][9][6]
2. A place of religious seclusion; a monastery or convent.^[18][9][6]
3. the cloister: life in a monastery or convent.^[18][9][6]
4. (obsolete) An enclosed space.^[9][6][10]

Verb

1. To shut away from the world, as if in a monastery: The novelist cloistered herself in a remote cottage.^[18][9][6]
2. To place in a monastery or convent.^[6][10]
3. To surround with a cloister, or to make into one.^[9][6][10]

Word family

• cloisterless
• cloisterlike
• cloistral
• cloistress
• cloistered
• cloisterer
• cloister garth

Related words

• claustrum
• claustral
• claustrophobia
• close
• clause
• cloison
• cloisonné

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
15. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
16. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins