cloistral

• cloisteral
• cloysteral (obsolete)
• cloystral (obsolete)

Ultimately from Latin claustrālis (“of the cloister”), probably via Middle French cloistral.[1] Doublet of claustral

cloistral (comparative more cloistral, superlative most cloistral)

1. Of, pertaining to, resembling or living in a cloister.
   • 1606, Samuel Daniel, The Queen’s Arcadia, in The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel, London: R. Gosling, 1717, The Epistle, pp. 151-152,

     […] it is in that Kind [of Words], as best accords

     With rural Passions, which use not to reach

     Beyond the Groves, and Woods, where they were bred

     And best become a Cloistral Exercise,

     Where Men shut out retir’d, and sequestred

     From publick Fashion, seem to sympathize

     With innocent and plain Simplicity:

   • 1766, Thomas Amory, The Life of John Buncle: Esq., London: J. Johnson and B. Davenport, Volume 2, Section 3, p. 56,

     As to the marriage of the friars in this cloystral house, their founder, Ivon, in my opinion, was quite right in this notion.

   • 1915, Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier, New York: Vintage, 1983, Part 3, Chapter 3, p. 135,

     Coming straight from the convent, she had gone in behind the high walls of the manor house that was almost more cloistral than any convent could have been.

   • 1932, William Faulkner, Light in August, New York: Modern Library, 1950, Chapter 19, p. 405,

     […] the three men followed, rushing into the hall, pausing, bringing with them into its stale and cloistral dimness something of the savage summer sunlight which they had just left.

2. Sheltered from the world; monastic.
   • 1844, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “A Child Asleep” in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, Volume 2, p. 126,

     Speak not! he is consecrated;

     Breathe no breath across his eyes:

     Lifted up and separated

     On the hand of God he lies,

     In a sweetness beyond touching,—held

     in cloistral sanctities.

   • 1936, D. H. Lawrence, “Education of the People” in Edward D. McDonald (ed.), Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, London: Heinemann, p. 588,

     […] however cloistral our elementary schools may be, sheltering the eternal flame of the high ideal of human existence, Jimmy Shepherd, aged twelve, and Nancy Shepherd, aged thirteen, know very well that the eternal flame of the high ideal is all my-eye.

3. Secluded.
   • 1850, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, London: Edward Moxon, Book 6, p. 163,

     […] cloistral avenues,

     Where silence dwells if music be not there:

   • 1904, Clinton Scollard, “The Summoner” in The Lyric Bough, New York: James Pott, p. 26,

     Then, responsive to the bird’s insistence,

     From the margin of some cloistral shore

     Came a murmur up the hollow distance,

     “On the morrow will I ope the door!”

• (of or pertaining to a cloister): claustral

• Castrillo