Reliquary

//ˈɹɛlɪkwɛɹi// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A container to hold or display religious relics.

    "“… There is an ivory virgin of the fourteenth century. I once found a buyer for that piece, but the old boy would not sell it.[…]The other piece—the one that concerns us—is known as the Borgia reliquary.”"

  2. 2
    a container where religious relics are stored or displayed (especially relics of saints) wordnet
  3. 3
    An object that sustains the memory of past people or events. figuratively
  4. 4
    A person who owes a balance.

Synonyms

All synonyms
archbarrowbeehive tombbone houseboundary stonebox grave

Example

More examples

"Antonio discovered that the reliquary was empty."

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French reliquaire (modern French reliquaire), from Late Latin reliquiarium, from rēliquia (“a relic”) (English relic), noun use of reliquus (“abandoned, left behind, relict”), from relinquō (“I relinquish”), from re- (“again”) and linquō (“I leave”), from Proto-Indo-European *leikʷ-.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.