adytums

Noun

adytum (plural adytums or adyta)

1. (Ancient Greece) The innermost sanctuary or shrine in a temple, from where oracles were given.
   • Let us now with minds free of paſſion, enter the adytum with an intent to find out its true figure, to examine what it really was, and what it is. […] This point is properly the door-way or entrance into the adytum, as a wicket or little door, whilſt the jambs of the hithermoſt trilithons preſent...1740, William Stukeley, “Of the Cell or Adytum of Stonehenge. Of the Surgeons Amphitheater, London.”, in Stonehenge: A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids, London: Printed for W. Innys and R....

   Synonyms:

   adyt, adyton

2. (broadly) A private chamber; a sanctum.
   • Although it was the custom for the priestesses to affect a holy fury, a species of temporary insanity, in the delivering of their oracles, yet it was also the custom to write them on the leaves of trees, and to deposit them at the entrances of their caves, or the adyta of their temples; and it was...1829, Godfrey Higgins, chapter I, in The Celtic Druids; or, An Attempt to Shew, that the Druids were the Priests of Oriental Colonies who Emigrated from India, […], London: Rowland Hunter, […]; Hurst...