Relating to death or the burial of dead bodies; a building or room where dead bodies or bones are kept.
From Old French 'charnel,' from Latin 'carnalis' (of flesh, mortal). The adjective 'charnel house' became a fixed phrase.
Medieval charnel houses were practical necessity—when graveyards filled up, bones were moved to ossuaries, and Paris's famous catacombs contain 6 million skeletons stacked in charnel chambers!
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