crypt

noun

ˈkript 

1

a

: a chamber (such as a vault) wholly or partly underground

especially : a vault under the main floor of a church

b

: a chamber in a mausoleum

2

a

: an anatomical pit or depression

b

: a simple tubular gland

Did you know?

Hidden under the main floor of a great church is often a large room, often with a tomb as its centerpiece. Many major European churches were built over the remains of a saint—the Vatican's great St. Peter's Basilica is an example—and instead of having the coffin buried, it was often given its spacious room below ground level. In a large aboveground tomb, or mausoleum, there may be several small chambers for individual coffins, also called crypts; when the comic book Tales from the Crypt made its first appearance in 1950, it was this meaning that the authors were referring to.

Synonyms

• catacomb(s)
• vault

Examples of crypt in a Sentence

the old church's crypt is the final resting place for the president and his beloved wife

Recent Examples on the Web

See them In a cathedral crypt, royal treasures that had been hidden and lost for decades were uncovered, revealing a trove of historical artifacts. —Stories By Real-Time News Team, With Ai Summarization, Miami Herald, 13 Jan. 2025

In 1931, a flood damaged the cathedral’s crypt, exposing the three rulers’ coffins. —Sonja Anderson, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Jan. 2025

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Aguirre and his wife, Blanca Estela Pantaleón, 61, visited their son’s crypt in a church in Saltillo. —Fred Ramos, New York Times, 4 Jan. 2025

Once the group arrived in Charleston, Pope and Sarah went down to the crypt of an old church while Cleo and John B supervised the surrounding areas. —Jordana Comiter, People.com, 16 Oct. 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Latin crypta, crupta "covered passage, underground room," borrowed from Greek kryptḗ "underground room," noun derivative from feminine of kryptós "hidden, secret," verbal adjective of krýptein "to hide, conceal," of uncertain origin

Note: The verb krýptein is phonetically and semantically close to kalýptein "to cover, conceal," and the two may have influenced each other. Other forms with which krýptein has been compared, such as Old Church Slavic kryjǫ, kryti "to cover, hide, shroud," Lithuanian kráuju, kráuti "to pile up," are too distant phonetically to allow realistic reconstruction of an Indo-European verbal base. The alternation in consonants between kryp- (in krýptein, kryptós), kryb- (in krýbdēn "secretly"), and kryph- (in kryphêi "in secret," -kryphos "hidden") is apparently the result of both assimilation and analogy.

First Known Use

1583, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Kids Definition

crypt

noun

ˈkript 

: an underground chamber

also : a chamber for burial

Medical Definition

crypt

noun

ˈkript 

1

: an anatomical pit, depression, or invagination

a developing tooth in its bony crypt

see tonsillar crypt

2

: a simple tubular gland (as a crypt of Lieberkühn)