sanctum

From Latin sānctum (“that which is holy”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈsæŋktəm/

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sanctum (plural sanctums)

1. A place set apart, as with a sanctum sanctorum; a sacred or private place; a private retreat or workroom.
   • 1848, Charlotte Bronte, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre:

     For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me, – "a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."

   • 2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist‎:

     His colleagues quailed when, in 1986, he first sat on the court as a brash 50-year-old whose experience had been mostly as a combative government lawyer: a justice who, in that sanctum of columns and deep judicial silence, was suddenly firing questions like grapeshot.

sānctum

1. nominative neuter singular of sānctus
2. accusative masculine singular of sānctus
3. accusative neuter singular of sānctus
4. vocative neuter singular of sānctus