Crypt

How to spell crypt

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crypt

What does crypt mean?

1. nounAn underground chamber or vault, especially one beneath a church used for burials or storing relics.

Crypt in a sentence

• The cathedral tour ended in the cold stone crypt beneath the altar.

• Restorers found medieval coffins sealed inside the crypt.

Where does crypt come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek kryptos, meaning 'hidden' or 'concealed', which was built on the verb kryptein, 'to hide'. The Greeks formed the noun krypte for a hidden, vaulted passage, and this passed into Latin as crypta, describing an underground gallery or vault. English took the word up by way of Latin, and by the medieval period it referred specifically to the stone chamber beneath the floor of a church where the dead were buried. The same kryptos root still hides inside familiar words like 'cryptic', 'encrypt', and the element krypton, all of which carry the idea of something concealed. That Greek origin is exactly why the word keeps its slightly surprising y rather than an i, a spelling clue worth remembering.

How the word is built

• crypt (from Greek kryptos: hidden, concealed)