Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The space around the altar of a church for the clergy and sometimes the choir, often enclosed by a lattice or railing.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Eccles., the inclosed space in a church surrounding the altar, and railed off from the choir; the sanctuary. In small churches having no separate choir the altar-rails (and in some churches the screen or latticework) divide the chancel immediately from the body of the church. In a wider sense the words chancel and choir are sometimes used to include both the sanctuary and the choir proper. In Greek churches the bema answers to the chancel or sanctuary, and the iconostasis (as the choir does not intervene between sanctuary and nave) corresponds in some measure to both altar-rails and rood-screen, to the former as separating the altar from the rest of the church, and to the latter as constituting a marked boundary to the nave.
- n. An inclosed space railed off in courts of judicature.
Wiktionary
- n. The space around the altar in a church, often enclosed, for use by the clergy and the choir. In medieval cathedrals the chancel was usually enclosed or blocked off from the nave by an altar screen.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. That part of a church, reserved for the use of the clergy, where the altar, or communion table, is placed.
- n. All that part of a cruciform church which is beyond the line of the transept farthest from the main front.
WordNet 3.0
- n. area around the altar of a church for the clergy and choir; often enclosed by a lattice or railing
Etymologies
- Middle English chauncel, from Old French chancel, from Late Latin cancellus, latticework, sing. of Latin cancellī; see cancel.
Examples
“These walls were called cancelli, hence the English word "chancel".”
“If you remember, each corner of the chancel, is supported by a large brick buttress.”
“In a later time the name chancel came to be applied to the presbyterium itself.”
“The chancel is short, there are no quire aisles, and the transept apses were rounded externally.”
“There are two tombs in the body of the place; but none in the chancel, which is bare, except for the tall candlesticks, and the chancel rail, beyond which is the undraped altar of solid marble, upon which stand four small candlesticks, two at each end.”
“These could be identified as chancel piers, the vertical elements that held the plates closing off the chancel or bema, i.e. the area around the altar at the eastern end of a church.”
“At the side of the chancel was a new idol: a heavy, seated figure of Huitzilopochtli, done in black lava stone.”
“The sound of the monks chanting the service of sext in the chancel was a low murmur like the rushing of a distant waterfall.”
The Pillars of the Earth
“Beyond the crossing, the east end of the church was called the chancel, and was mainly reserved for the monks.”
The Pillars of the Earth
“The east end was called the chancel and it was shorter than the nave.”
The Pillars of the Earth
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chancel’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 1073 more...
bilby "He hurled the mirror fragments into the chancel." - 'Lanark', Alasdair Gray. Dec 4, 2007