Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A member of a convent or other religious community.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One of a religious order living in a convent or in community; a monk: opposed to anchoret or hermit (one who lives in solitude).
- n. A social bee.
Wiktionary
- n. A new or recent member of a Greek monastic religious order; a caloyer
- n. A monk who lives in a religious community, rather than in solitude
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One of a religious order, dwelling in a convent, or a community, in opposition to an anchoret, or hermit, who lives in solitude.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a member of a religious order living in common
Etymologies
- From Old French cenobite or Ecclesiastical Latin coenobita, from coenobium, from Ancient Greek κοινόβιον ("community life, convent"), from κοινός (koinos, "community") + βίος (bios, "life"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Late Latin coenobīta, from coenobium, convent, from Greek koinobion, from koinobios, living in community : koinos, common; see kom in Indo-European roots + bios, life; see gwei- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Gawie Hough, 42, battered twin months after the former driver of his cenobite Deon, 41, in danger him with the words: "I'll show we what we can do with the white man.”
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“Wandering Monk, Reluctant Gyrovague: I wanted to be a good monk, a stable cenobite, in a monastery under a Prioress.”
“Looking for “cenobite” on the dictionary was pointless, there was no Internet for me at the time, nobody I knew could help.”
“I have this halloween latex mask I picked up a couple of years ago: it's sort of a jester-cenobite kind of thing that vaguely suggests some of the costume work in The Cell memo: put that film on shopping list, just for the dreamworld sequences.”
“One break from playing music involved the jester-cenobite mask, an accordion 3, and thankfully no cameras : - the result looked like something from a lost episode of Buffy.”
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“Monsieur de Lovenjoul, to foster the tradition of his hermit-like conduct; and to all the jealous women with whom he entertained friendly relations he asserted that his morals were as spotless as those of a cenobite.”
“About the close of the fourth century the cenobite system was introduced into Europe, and in an astonishingly short space of time spread throughout all the western countries where Christianity had gained a foothold.”
“By turning antinomian when necessary and staying amongst our fellows, making known our views according to our ability and opportunity, we shall be doing more towards establishing the proper relation between man and sub-man than by turning cenobite and refusing all intercourse and association with our fellows.”
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“He is, in a single individual, the happy combination of several men, that is to say, he is by turns, and as it may be needful, a man indulgent or severe in his preaching; a man of abstinence, or a good feeder; a man of the world, or a cenobite; a man of his breviary, or a courtier.”
“There, in Camaldoli, Romuald built a monastery, "and by several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to a new Order, in which he united the cenobite and eremetical life.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cenobite’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
caballine, cabas, cable, caboched, cabochon, caboose, cabotage, cabré, cabrie, cabriole, cabriolet, cacaesthesia and 1298 more...
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Bite me
bite, bitewing, biteplate, backbite, checkbite, biter, exhibited, sound bite, snakebite, rat-bite fever, overbite, debited and 32 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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Lively Words
quick, quicksilver, cwic, quitch grass, cwice, vivify, viviparous, viper, weever, wyvern, viand, victual and 148 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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wordhoard
dilatory, ataraxia, hermit, cabana, hut, dome, vestigial, porcine, crapulous, usufruct, curmudgeon, bombastic and 229 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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uncleosbert's Words
omphalaskepsis, gravid, steatopygian, marmalade, triffid, scurrilous, kith, lilliputian, slunk, snailular, milquetoast, elephantine and 191 more...
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GRE words plus
Words that will probably only come in handy for the GRE or whatnot.
matutinal, foment, peremptory, credal, simony, cloture, syncretism, salubrious, fordable, semiotic, phratry, adduction and 95 more...
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Words that make you go hmmmm...
Interesting words you probably won't hear in your day-to-day.
maxwell, mooncalf, quagga, glaikit, musquash, lingam, haruspex, qindarka, chthonic, ipomoea, azimuthal, valuta and 304 more...
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rememberers
prolix, ageusia, animadversion, anodyne, antic, arabesque, beadle, brachymetropia, colophon, desquamation, diaphoresis, diegesis and 3250 more...
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fantasy & horror story
obeah, cenobite, protean, amaranth, obfuscate, auspex, cyclopean, quietus, vicissitude, metastasize, lugubrious, vicissitude and 1 more...
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C
concupiscence, Cadmean victory, caprice, caustic, circumambient, circumlocution, claque, colonnade, comprador, concatenate, concours d'élégance, concourse and 61 more...
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wilde
prudery, milieu, mephitic, putrefaction, equerry, carnelian, hydropic, antithetical, antinomian, facile, laburnum, tussore and 67 more...
Tweets
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