adyt

English

Etymology

From Latin adytum.

Noun

adyt (plural adyts)

1. (archaic, poetic) The innermost sanctum of a temple, in which oracles are announced.
   • 1733, Flavius Josephus, The Works, page 708:

     […] they afterwards broke a matter of twenty cubits, and attempted with their own hands to put the adyt and sacred places in a blaze.

   • 1907, William Bittle Wells, Lute Pease, The Pacific Monthly: A Magazine of Education and Progress, page 709:

     Forever freed
     The bondage of the flesh, they tread, at last,
     The inmost aisles of this elysian grove,
     To enter in the vasty House of Dreams,
     Unto the adyt of the mystic fane,
     Where, in a golden drapery of light,
     Is Beauty shrined, supernal, chaste,  […]

   • 1980, James William Hjort, Ebon roses, jewelled skulls, page 34:

     But he refused to abandon his question while there was yet a room, an adyt, a tower to be searched, or vault uncovered in shadowed depths. He called forth loudly again and again. But none responded to his words save the rats who scurried to seek out other places of hiding, vanishing into the shadows […]

   • 2006, M. A. Foster, The Book of The Ler:

     The door was open and there were more outside. He didn't dare look. His mind felt fogged, dulled by something, a drug. Cretus wasn't sure. Something reeled drunkenly in the adyt of his mind, a vertigo. Had it been that simple? Had it worked?

Anagrams

• DATY, T-Day