noun

cloister

KLOYS-tuh

noun

A covered walkway bordering a courtyard, typically in a monastery or similar religious building.

"Tourists wandered through the cathedral's ancient stone cloister."

"Monks would walk the cloister in silent prayer each morning."

A monastery, convent, or similarly secluded religious place — or, more broadly, life lived in one.

"She left city life behind to enter the cloister as a nun."

verb

To shut someone away from the outside world, whether by choice or not.

"He cloistered himself in his study for weeks while finishing the manuscript."

How to Use Cloister

Learner’s notes

In plain EnglishA quiet, enclosed place cut off from the outside world — or the act of shutting yourself (or someone else) away like that.

Common pairings

cloistered life monastic cloister cloister oneself away

cloistered past tense, cloisters plural, cloisters singular

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Tourists wandered through the cathedral's ancient stone _____.

From Old French cloistre, going back to Latin claustrum, "a place shut in" — from claudere, "to close." The same root gives us "claustrophobia."

sister lister mister twister meister blister keister minister sinister register magister banister