Word.ws English Dictionary

charnels

charnels is the plural of charnel.

Meaning of charnel

Noun (1)

charnel (plural charnels)

  1. A chapel attached to a mortuary.
  2. A repository for dead bodies.
    • When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
      ⁠And home to Mary’s house return’d,
      ⁠Was this demanded—if he yearn’d
      To hear her weeping by his grave?1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 50

Noun (2)

charnel (plural charnels)

  1. (historical) Part of a helm, now usually identified as the hinge (near the neck) by which the helm was secured to the breastplate.
    • The knight did as he was desired, and broke his spear twice on the very charnel of his helmet. It being now Sir William Cecil's turn, each knight charged his spear directly towards the other's head, and galloping on, both lances[…]1836, George Payne Rainsford James, Darnley, Or the Field of the Cloth of Gold, page 134

See all 4 meanings of charnel

Questions about charnels

What is charnels the plural of?
Charnels is the plural of charnel.

Words near charnels in the dictionary

  1. charnel houses
  2. charnel-house
  3. charnel-houses
  4. charnelhouse
  5. charnelhouses
  6. charnels
  7. Charney
  8. Charneys
  9. charnico
  10. Charnley
  11. Charnock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: charnels (page history and authors); charnel (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: “charnels.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/charnels. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.