sanctum

English

Etymology

From Latin sānctum (“that which is holy”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsæŋktəm/

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

sanctum (plural sanctums or sancta)

1. A place set apart, as with a sanctum sanctorum; a sacred or private place; a private retreat or workroom.
   • 1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXXIX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. , volume II, London: Henry Colburn, , →OCLC, page 200:

     As he descended the stairs, two persons passed him, so remarkably dissimilar in their persons, dress, and carriage, that he could not forbear to look earnestly at them, as forming a criterion of the mixed character of company admissible in such places, and which was to him (with his preconceived notions of the inviolability of the female sanctum) an insuperable objection to such scenes of general resort.

   • 1848, Charlotte Bronte, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre:

     For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me, – "a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."

   • 1984 April 14, Richard Knisely, “Quintessential Narcissism”, in Gay Community News, page 13:

     A diary, after all, is a sanctum for self-confession.

   • 2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist‎:

     His colleagues quailed when, in 1986, he first sat on the court as a brash 50-year-old whose experience had been mostly as a combative government lawyer: a justice who, in that sanctum of columns and deep judicial silence, was suddenly firing questions like grapeshot.

Derived terms

• inner sanctum

Translations

Latin

Participle

sānctum

1. inflection of sānctus:
   1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular
   2. accusative masculine singular