Word.ws English Dictionary

abbey

UK/ˈæbi/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈabɪj/

abbey noun: the office or dominion of an abbot or abbess.

abbey: the office or dominion of an abbot or abbess
Image: Klaus with K, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

abbey (plural abbeys)

  1. The office or dominion of an abbot or abbess.
  2. A monastery or society of people, secluded from the world and devoted to religion and celibacy, which is headed by an abbot or abbess; also, the monastic building or buildings.
    • Near-synonym: convent
    • From 1199 to 1203 William Punchard was the abbot of the abbey of Rievaulx, which was part of the Cistercian order of monks.
    Synonyms:
    convent
  3. The church of a monastery.
    • No, we can't have alphabetical seating in the abbey. You'd have Iraq and Iran next to each other (laugh track)... Plus Israel and Jordan all sitting in the same pew (laugh track)! We'd be in danger of starting World War III (laugh track)!1987 December 17, Antony Jay, Jonathan Lynn, “A Diplomatic Incident”, in Yes, Prime Minister, season 2, episode 3, spoken by Bernard Woolley (Derek Fowlds)
  4. (British, English) A residence that was previously an abbatial building.
  5. (dialectal, Somerset) The abele or white poplar (Populus alba).
    • Ab'bey. The great white poplar: one of the varieties of the Populus alba.1825, James Jennings, Observations on some of the Dialects of the West of England, page 21
    • Abbey-lug, a branch of the abele tree.1873, W. P. Williams and W. A. Jones, A Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in use in Somersetshire, page 1

Proper noun capitalized: Abbey

Abbey

  1. A diminutive of the female given name Abigail, from Hebrew.
    Synonyms:
    Abi, Abby
  2. A diminutive of the male given name Albert, from the Germanic languages.
  3. A British surname.
  4. (London) Westminster Abbey.
  5. (Scotland) The precincts of the Abbey of Holyrood.
  6. A hamlet in Dunkeswell parish, East Devon district, Devon, England, probably named for the local abbey (OS grid ref ST1410).
  7. A small village south-east of Tuam, County Galway, Ireland (Irish grid ref M 5043).
  8. A village west of Portumna, County Galway (Irish grid ref M 7305).
  9. A village in the Rural Municipality of Miry Creek, Saskatchewan, Canada, named after a farm in Ireland.
  10. A suburb of Busselton, Western Australia, named after landholder D. Abbey.

abbey meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

abbey in Hindi

मठ, ईसाइयों का मठ, विहार

abbey in Tamil

ஆசிரமம், மடம், கன்னிமடம், திருமடம், குருமடம், திருமடக்கோயில்

abbey in Urdu

خانقاہ

abbey in Bengali

একইসঙ্গে সেই মঠীয় স্থাপনাটি, একটি মঠের গির্জা
More languagesFewer languages
abbey in Malayalam
മഠം maṭhaṁ
abbey in Kannada
ಪಾದ್ರಿಗಳ ಮಠ, ಚರ್ಚು, ಕ್ರಿಸ್ತ ದೇವಾಲಯ
abbey in Punjabi
ਐਬੇ
abbey in Arabic
دَيْر dayr
abbey in Vietnamese
tu viện, nhà tu

Examples of abbey in a sentence

  • The newly appointed abbot decided to take a tour of the abbey with the cardinal's emissary.
  • Among the Port-Royalists when the abbey was the home of the Jansenists in the 17th century were Antoine Arnauld, Blaise Pascal, and other famous scholars.
  • The Cistercian abbey of Poblet, in the district of Tarragona, was enthusiastically patronized by the king-counts.

All 11 example sentences with abbey

Synonyms of abbey

Forms of abbey

pluralabbeys
alternative form (obsolete)abby

Plural of abbey: abbeys

Origin of abbey

From A.D. 1250 in Middle English abbey, abbeye (“convent headed by an abbot”) (compare archaic English abbaye), itself borrowed from Old French abaïe, abbaïe, abeïe, abbeïe (Modern French abbaye) from Late Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin abbātia, from Classical Latin abbās (“abbot”). Doublet of abbacy and Opatija. See abbot.

Words formed from abbey

Phrases with abbey

Words that rhyme with abbey

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about abbey

What does abbey mean?
Abbey means the office or dominion of an abbot or abbess.
What is abbey in Hindi?
Abbey in Hindi is मठ, ईसाइयों का मठ, विहार. See Abbey meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is abbey?
Abbey can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce abbey?
Abbey is pronounced /ˈæbi/ (UK).
What is the plural of abbey?
The plural of abbey is abbeys.

Words near abbey in the dictionary

  1. Abbevilean
  2. Abbeville
  3. Abbeville County
  4. Abbevillean
  5. Abbevillian
  6. abbey
  7. abbey counter
  8. abbey counters
  9. Abbey Dore
  10. Abbey Field
  11. Abbey Gate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: abbey (page history and authors); Abbey (page history and authors); abbey (Hindi Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abbey (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abbey (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abbey (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abbey (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); abbey (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-abbey.ogg, en-ca-abbey.ogg.

Cite this entry: “abbey.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/abbey. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.