seraglio
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From Italian seraglio, from Vulgar Latin *serrāculum, from a late form of Latin serāre (“lock up, close”), from sera (“lock, bolt”). The Italian word was used (because of phonetic similarity) to translate Persian سرای (“lodgings, residence”). Compare serai, serail.
[edit] Pronunciation
An Italian-type pronunciation would be something like "se-ra-lyo", but in a poem by Rudyard Kipling the meter shows a 4-syllable phonetic pronunciation "se-rag-li-o".
[edit] Noun
seraglio (plural seraglios)
- The palace of the Grand Seignior in Constantinople.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book V, chapter x
- At these words he started up, and beheld—not his Sophia—no, nor a Circassian maid richly and elegantly attired for the grand Signior's seraglio.
- 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book V, chapter x
- The sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in a Turkish Muslim household.
- A brothel or place of debauchery.
- An interior cage or enclosed courtyard for keeping wild beasts.
