Definition of CRYPTS

Did You Know?

Hidden under the main floor of a great church is often a large room, often with a tomb as its centerpiece. Many major European churches were built over the remains of a saint—the Vatican's great St. Peter's Basilica is an example—and instead of having the coffin buried, it was often given its spacious room below ground level. In a large aboveground tomb, or mausoleum, there may be several small chambers for individual coffins, also called crypts; when the comic book Tales from the Crypt made its first appearance in 1950, it was this meaning that the authors were referring to.

Examples of crypt in a Sentence

Noun the old church's crypt is the final resting place for the president and his beloved wife

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun Very steady, low-humidity environment down in the crypt there. — New York Times, "National Cathedral, Nasdaq, Businesses and Unions Locate Troves of N95 Masks," 26 Mar. 2020 Americans have scoured work sites and storage closets to find unused masks to donate - including Washington National Cathedral, which located 5,000 unused respirators in a church crypt. — Anchorage Daily News, "Inside America’s mask crunch: A slow government reaction and an industry wary of liability," 3 Apr. 2020 After his death in Atlanta in 2006, Brown's remains were apparently placed in a crypt outside the home of his daughter Deanna Brown Thomas near Aiken, South Carolina. — Thomas Lake, CNN, "James Brown's lawyer breaks silence as DA weighs potential death investigation," 3 Mar. 2020 The cathedral, which describes itself as the largest Gothic cathedral in the world, said on Monday that its 600-foot-long nave and equally large subterranean crypt would be turned into an emergency hospital as part of the fight against the pandemic. — Liam Stack, New York Times, "Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Including Crypt, Will Become a Hospital," 6 Apr. 2020 In 2010, another daughter alleged that the crypt was empty. — Thomas Lake, CNN, "James Brown's lawyer breaks silence as DA weighs potential death investigation," 3 Mar. 2020 Donnie’s crypt is a short distance (in beautiful Fort Snelling Cemetery) from his father, Donald, who passed away in 2014. — Sainted & Tainted Writers, Twin Cities, "Sainted & Tainted: ‘All we can say is, God bless our V.A.!’," 9 Nov. 2019 But city authorities say the plaza in front of the cathedral and the crypt underneath it will reopen much sooner, as lead decontamination efforts were just ending when the lockdown started. — Aurelien Breeden, New York Times, "Marking Notre-Dame Fire in a Locked-Down Paris," 15 Apr. 2020 But city authorities say the plaza in front of the cathedral and the crypt underneath it will reopen much sooner, as lead decontamination efforts were just ending when the lockdown started. — Aurelien Breeden, BostonGlobe.com, "A year after blaze, Notre Dame restoration paused by virus," 15 Apr. 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'crypt.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

History and Etymology for crypt

Noun

borrowed from Latin crypta, crupta "covered passage, underground room," borrowed from Greek kryptḗ "underground room," noun derivative from feminine of kryptós "hidden, secret," verbal adjective of krýptein "to hide, conceal," of uncertain origin

Note: The verb krýptein is phonetically and semantically close to kalýptein "to cover, conceal," and the two may have influenced each other. Other forms with which krýptein has been compared, such as Old Church Slavic kryjǫ, kryti "to cover, hide, shroud," Lithuanian kráuju, kráuti "to pile up," are too distant phonetically to allow realistic reconstruction of an Indo-European verbal base. The alternation in consonants between kryp- (in krýptein, kryptós), kryb- (in krýbdēn "secretly"), and kryph- (in kryphêi "in secret," -kryphos "hidden") is apparently the result of both assimilation and analogy.

Combining form

combining form from Greek kryptós "hidden, secret" — more at crypt

Learn More about crypt