MEANING
A monastery or convent governed by an abbot or abbess, or its surviving buildings.
Use it for
Disbanded religious communities, inherited ruins, sacred landscapes.Give a ruin an institutional past rather than treating it as anonymous masonry.
Words that belong together
- ruined abbey
- abbey church
- abbey precincts
On the page
The abbey's bells had been silent for three centuries.
Beyond the orchard, an abbey sheltered the last members of the order.
She found the family crest among the stones taken from the abbey.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- abbey
Usage notes
Primary category: gothic. Names an institution as well as a building; a ruined abbey need no longer house a community. Plural abbeys.
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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