Alsatia
Alsatia proper noun: an area lying north of London's River Thames, once privileged as a sanctuary and thus known as a refuge for criminals. It spanned from the Whitefriars monastery to the south of the west end of Fleet Street and adjacent to the Temple.
Proper noun
Alsatia
- An area lying north of London's River Thames, once privileged as a sanctuary and thus known as a refuge for criminals. It spanned from the Whitefriars monastery to the south of the west end of Fleet Street and adjacent to the Temple.
- Whitefriars, adjacent to the Temple, then well known by the cant name of Alsatia, had at this time, and for nearly a century afterwards, the privilege of a sanctuary[.]1822, Sir Walter Scott, chapter XVI, in The Fortunes of Nigel, Edinburgh
- Maggie always appeared in the most amiable light at her aunt Moss’s; it was her Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of law[.]1860, George Eliot, chapter VIII, in The Mill on the Floss, Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons
Origin of Alsatia
Named for the region of Alsace, a region outside legislative and juridical lines. More at Alsatia.
Questions about Alsatia
- What does Alsatia mean?
- Alsatia means an area lying north of London's River Thames, once privileged as a sanctuary and thus known as a refuge for criminals. It spanned from the Whitefriars monastery to the south of the west end of Fleet Street and adjacent to the Temple.
- What part of speech is Alsatia?
- Alsatia is a proper noun.
Words near Alsatia in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Alsatia (page history and authors). 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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Cite this entry: “Alsatia.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alsatia. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.