chapel

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a service conducted in a place of worship that has its own altar

   The children were late for chapel.

2. 2
   noun

   A place of worship in another building or within a civil institution such as a larger church, airport, prison, monastery, school, etc.; often primarily for private prayer.

   One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”.

3. 3
   adj

   Describing a person who attends a nonconformist chapel.

   The village butcher is chapel.

4. 4
   verb

   To deposit or inter in a chapel; to enshrine.

   Give us the bones Of our dead kings, that we may chapel them!

Simplified etymology

Chapel comes through medieval usage from Latin cappella ‘little cape’. The word first referred to the sanctuary housing the cape of St Martin of Tours and was later extended to other holy sanctuaries. Chaplain is related and originally denoted an attendant charged with guarding the cape.

From Middle English chapele, chapel, from Old French chapele, from Late Latin cappella (“little cloak; chapel”), diminutive of cappa (“cloak, cape”). Doublet of capelle. (printing office): Said to be because printing was first carried on in England in a chapel near Westminster Abbey.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary