Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A place of worship that is smaller than and subordinate to a church.
  • noun A place of worship in an institution, such as a prison, college, or hospital.
  • noun A recess or room in a church set apart for special or small services.
  • noun A place of worship for those not belonging to an established church.
  • noun The services held at a chapel.
  • noun Music A choir or orchestra connected with a place of worship at a royal court.
  • noun A funeral home.
  • noun A room in a funeral home used for conducting funeral services.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A subordinate place of worship forming an addition to or a part of a large church or a cathedral, but separately dedicated, and devoted to special services.
  • noun A separate building subsidiary to a parish church: as, a parochial chapel; a free chapel.
  • noun A small independent church-edifice devoted to special services.
  • noun A place of worship connected with a royal palace, a private house, or a corporation, as a university or college.
  • noun In Scotland and Ireland, any Roman Catholic church or place of worship.
  • noun An Anglican church, usually small, anywhere on the continent of Europe.
  • noun A place of worship used by non-conformists in England; a meeting-house.
  • noun In printing: A printing-house; a printers’ workshop: said to be so designated because printing was first carried on in England, by Caxton, in a chapel attached to Westminster Abbey.
  • noun The collective body of journeymen printers in a printing-house.
  • noun A choir of singers or an orchestra attached to a nobleman's or ecclesiastic's establishment or a prince's court.
  • To deposit or bury in a chapel; enshrine.
  • Nautical, to turn (a ship) completely about in a light breeze of wind, when close-hauled, so that she will lie the same way as before.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To deposit or inter in a chapel; to enshrine.
  • transitive verb (Naut.) To cause (a ship taken aback in a light breeze) so to turn or make a circuit as to recover, without bracing the yards, the same tack on which she had been sailing.
  • noun A subordinate place of worship.
  • noun a small church, often a private foundation, as for a memorial.
  • noun a small building attached to a church.
  • noun a room or recess in a church, containing an altar.
  • noun A place of worship not connected with a church.
  • noun In England, a place of worship used by dissenters from the Established Church; a meetinghouse.
  • noun A choir of singers, or an orchestra, attached to the court of a prince or nobleman.
  • noun A printing office, said to be so called because printing was first carried on in England in a chapel near Westminster Abbey.
  • noun An association of workmen in a printing office.
  • noun (Law) A privy.
  • noun a director of music in a chapel; the director of a court or orchestra.
  • noun (Naut.) to chapel a ship. See Chapel, v. t., 2.
  • noun to have a meeting of the men employed in a printing office, for the purpose of considering questions affecting their interests.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A place of worship, smaller than, or subordinate to a church.
  • noun A place of worship in a civil institution such as an airport, prison etc.
  • noun A funeral home, or a room in one for holding funeral services.
  • noun A trade union branch in UK printing or journalism.
  • adjective Describing a person who attends a nonconformist chapel.
  • verb nautical, transitive To cause (a ship taken aback in a light breeze) to turn or make a circuit so as to recover, without bracing the yards, the same tack on which she had been sailing.
  • verb obsolete, transitive To deposit or inter in a chapel; to enshrine.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a service conducted in a place of worship that has its own altar
  • noun a place of worship that has its own altar

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English chapele, from Old French, from Medieval Latin capella, chapel, canopy, cape (perhaps from a shrine containing the cape of St. Martin of Tours), diminutive of capa, from Late Latin cappa, hooded cloak.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French chapele, from Late Latin cappella ("little cloak; chapel"), diminutive of cappa ("cloak, cape").

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