CONCLAVE

conclave

(noun) a confidential or secret meeting

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

conclave (plural conclaves)

The set of apartments within which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church are continuously secluded while engaged in choosing a pope.

The group of Roman Catholic cardinals locked in a conclave until they elect a new pope; the body of cardinals.

A private meeting; a close or secret assembly.

Source: Wiktionary


Con"clave ( or ; 277), n. Etym: [F., fr. L. conclave a room that may locked up; con- + clavis key. See Clavicle.]

1. The set of apartments within which the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church are continuously secluded while engaged in choosing a pope.

2. The body of cardinals shut up in the conclave for the election of a pope; hence, the body of cardinals. It was said a cardinal, by reason of his apparent likelihood to step into St. Peter's chair, that in two conclaves he went in pope and came out again cardinal. South.

3. A private meeting; a close or secret assembly. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave (Johnson's Club) on new books, were speedily known over all London. Macaulay. To be in conclave, to be engaged in a secret meeting; -- said of several, or a considerable number of, persons.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

15 March 2025

TRUNCATION

(noun) the replacement of an edge or solid angle (as in cutting a gemstone) by a plane (especially by a plane that is equally inclined to the adjacent faces)


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Coffee Trivia

The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking as the modern beverage appeared in modern-day Yemen. In the middle of the 15th century in Sufi shrines where coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed for drinking. The Yemenis procured the coffee beans from the Ethiopian Highlands.

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