Shrine

How to spell shrine

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shrine

What does shrine mean?

1. nounA place, structure, or container regarded as holy or devoted to honouring a revered person, deity, or memory.

Shrine in a sentence

• Pilgrims travelled for days to reach the mountain shrine.

• A small roadside shrine marked the spot where the accident happened.

Where does shrine come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled into English remarkably early, appearing in Old English as 'scrin', a word that simply meant a chest, box, or coffer in which precious things were stored. It was borrowed straight from the Latin 'scrinium', which literally described a case or cylindrical box for holding books, letters, or documents. As Christianity spread through England, the meaning narrowed and rose in dignity: the box became specifically the reliquary that housed the bones or relics of a saint, and from there the word came to cover the whole tomb or sacred place built around them. By extension it now names any place, large or small, devoted to a revered person or cause, from a roadside memorial to a cricket fan's collection. The spelling preserves the old 'shr' cluster and the silent final 'e' that marks the long vowel, even though the Latin ancestor began with a plain 's'.

How the word is built

• shrine (single root, from Latin scrinium: a case or chest for keeping things safe)