Meaning & use
Charnel
Last updated
Relating to death or containing dead bodies, especially bones; associated with a charnel house, a vault for storing corpses or bones.
See it in a sentence
The old crypt gave off a charnel smell of damp stone and decay.
Soldiers described the battlefield as a charnel landscape littered with the dead.
A note on using this word
Most often used today in the fixed phrase "charnel house," but it can stand alone as an evocative adjective in literary writing.
Words with a similar meaning
deathlysepulchral
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Another way to use it
2. noun
A vault or building in which corpses or bones are stored.
Excavators found the abbey's charnel beneath the old chapel floor.
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