The Only Use of
cloister
in
A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires, Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun; For aye to be shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold, fruitless moon.†
Scene 1.1
Definitions:
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(1)
(cloister in the architectural sense) a covered walkway and the courtyard it surrounds with an open colonnade on one side of the walkway and the perimeter building walls on the other side -- especially as an area of quiet contemplation on religious grounds
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(2)
(cloister in the religious sense) residence that is a place of religious seclusion (such as a monastery); or the act of entering into such a residence
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(3)
(cloister as in: cloister ourselves away) seclude from the world (kept separate from the world)