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crypt

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

An underground chamber or vault, often beneath a church; in poetry, a space of burial, memory, and hidden secrets, frequently evoking the Gothic or the past.

Detailed Definition
A crypt is an underground chamber, often associated with burial. In the poem, the shell is compared to a crypt, which deepens the image of the nautilus as a closed, sacred dwelling.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!” makes a crypt an underground burial chamber; “Below the chapel, kings slept in the crypt” uses its architectural sense; “My memory became a crypt of unsaid names” turns the tomb into metaphor; Gothic poetry uses crypts for secrecy, mortality, resurrection, and enclosed sound
Additional Notes
The word is specialized and may be unfamiliar to readers who know it mainly from religious or burial contexts.; Found in the poem, The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Other Meanings of “crypt”
Also Known As
tomb mausoleum sepulcher vault
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