Monasteries

How to spell monasteries

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce monasteries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does monasteries mean?

1. nounBuildings or communities where monks live and follow religious vows.

Monasteries in a sentence

• The tour visited three medieval monasteries along the river valley.

• Many of the country's oldest libraries were preserved inside monasteries.

Where does monasteries come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek monastērion, a place set aside for solitary living, which was itself built on the verb monazein, meaning 'to live alone', from the root monos, meaning 'alone' or 'single'. The original idea was strikingly individual: a monastērion was where a hermit withdrew from the world, even though the word later came to describe communities of monks living together. Late Latin took it as monasterium, and it travelled through Old French and Old English forms before settling into Middle English as 'monasterie'. The same monos root that gives the 'mona-' beginning here also sits inside familiar words like 'monk', 'monopoly', and 'monotone'. The spelling trap lies in the unstressed middle and the ending: writers often drop a syllable or write '-aries' instead of '-eries', so it helps to remember the singular 'monastery' and simply swap the final 'y' for 'ies'.

How the word is built

• mon- (from Greek monos: alone, single)
• -aster- (from monasterion: a dwelling for a hermit)
• -y (place noun)
• -ies (plural)