sanctum

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a private room or retreat where someone can work or be undisturbed

   Only close colleagues were invited into the editor's private sanctum.

2. 2
   noun

   a sacred place, especially the innermost part of a shrine or temple

   Worshippers approached the sanctum in silence.

From Latin sanctum ("a holy place or thing"), the neuter of sanctus ("holy, consecrated"). The domestic sense developed by comparing a private room to an inviolable inner sanctuary.

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