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Gluttonous; greedy; gormandizing. "Glutton souls." Dryden. A glutton monastery in former ages makes a hungry ministry in our days. Fuller.

A farmhouse of a monastery, where the rents and tithes, paid in grain, were deposited. [Obs.]

A convent or monastery which is also a place of refuge or entertainment for travelers on some difficult road or pass, as in the Alps; as, the Hospice of the Great St. Bernard.

A church of a monastery. The name is often retained and applied to the church after the monastery has ceased to exist (as Beverly Minster, Southwell Minster, etc.), and is also improperly used for any large church. Minster house, the official house in which the canons of a cathedral live in common or in rotation. Shipl…

Of or pertaining to monastery, or to monastic life. -- Mon`as*te"ri*al*ly, adv.

world, and devotes himself to religion; one of a religious community of men inhabiting a monastery, and bound by vows to a life of chastity, obedience, and poverty. "A monk out of his cloister." Chaucer. Monks in some respects agree with regulars, as in the substantial vows of religion; but in other respects monks and…

A cell (or offshoot of a larger monastery) governed by a prior.

of persons, especially in the Middle Ages, who offered themselves and their property to a monastery. Addis & Arnold.

An open space within a monastery or adjoining a church, as the space within a cloister, the open court before a basilica, etc.

The apartment in a monastery or nunnery where the inmates are permitted to meet and converse with each other, or with visitors and friends from without. Piers Plowman.

A small building in a monastery where penitents confessed. Shpiley.

ee the Note under Priory. -- Claustral prior, an official next in rank to the abbot in a monastery; prior of the cloisters.

In an abbey or monastery, the room set apart for writing or copying manuscripts; in general, a room devoted to writing. Writing rooms, or scriptoria, where the chief works of Latin literature . . . were copied and illuminated. J. R. Green.

Not regular; not bound by monastic vows or rules; not confined to a monastery, or subject to the rules of a religious community; as, a secular priest. He tried to enforce a stricter discipline and greater regard for morals, both in the religious orders and the secular clergy. Prescett.

A narrow passage between two buildings, as between the transept and chapter house of a monastery. [Eng.]

The head of a monastery, convent, abbey, or the like.

a branch of the Cistercian Order, which was established by Armand de Rancé in 1660 at the monastery of La Trappe in Normandy. Extreme austerity characterizes their discipline. They were introduced permanently into the United States in 1848, and have monasteries in Iowa and Kentucky.

In the Middle Ages, a room in a monastery for the reception and entertainment of strangers and pilgrims, and for the relief of paupers. [Called also Xenodocheion.]