charnel
noun
char·nel
| \ ˈchär-nᵊl
\
\
Definition of charnel
: a building or chamber in which bodies or bones are deposited
— called also charnel house
Keep scrolling for more
Examples of charnel in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Blood and wreckage was distributed over the entire ship, the after cabin and the vicinity of the ship adjacent to the exploded boiler resembling a charnel house. — San Diego Union-Tribune, "From the Archives: In 1905 the gunboat Bennington exploded in San Diego harbor," 21 July 2019 On March 14, 1891, the city of New Orleans became a charnel house as a mob of as many as 20,000 wantonly slaughtered 11 Italian-Americans. — Rosario A. Iaconis, WSJ, "An Overdue Apology to Italian-Americans," 8 Apr. 2019 There’s a reason Buddhist monks meditate on charnel grounds, and why Cicero said the contemplation of death was the beginning of philosophy. — Parul Sehgal, New York Times, "What the Living Can Learn by Looking Death Straight in the Eye," 26 June 2018 Down the row, past the typical stacks of bones and skulls found in charnel houses, the body of a woman was so well preserved that her nose still protruded outward from her face, some three hundred years after her death. — Caitlin Doughty, Time, "There Are Better Ways to Mourn," 4 Oct. 2017 Similar charnel houses were created in Catholic cemeteries all across Europe. — Jennifer Billock, Smithsonian, "This Austrian Ossuary Holds Hundreds of Elaborately Hand-Painted Skulls," 15 Sep. 2017 Grenfell Tower was a torch in the dark night, a charnel house that would claim at least 80 lives in London’s deadliest fire since the Nazi bombing in World War II. — Simon Montlake, The Christian Science Monitor, "Grenfell fire casts harsh light on London's dwindling low-income housing," 18 Aug. 2017 An honorable soldier, Lee is an apt symbol for the Confederate rank and file whose sacrifices in the war’s charnel house shouldn’t be flushed down the memory hole. — Rich Lowry, National Review, "Mothball the Confederate Monuments," 15 Aug. 2017 Museum collections may look like a creepy charnel house to outsiders, full of corpses, pins, and mothballs. — Gwen Pearson, WIRED, "Bee Tongues and Flowers Reveal Evolution in Overdrive," 24 Sep. 2015These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'charnel.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Keep scrolling for more