conclave — English Dictionary

Noun

1. The set of apartments in which cardinals are secluded while the process to elect a pope takes place.

   Examples

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   On Friday, St. John's Day, the 27th of December, the cardinals entered the conclave. […] Two hours before nightfall, the whole body met again in a chapel within the conclave, and after the bull of pope Julius [II] against simoniacal practices had been read, every cardinal, in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, took his corporal oath upon the Holy Evangelists to observe the bull to the best of his abilities.

2. A group of cardinals assembled to elect a new pope.

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   Of the ten Cardinals now forming the Conclave, five voted for Cardinal Geoffredo Castiglione [later Pope Celestine IV], a Milanese, nephew to Urban III, and three for Cardinal Romano [da Porto].

   Two years afterwards Pius IX died, and the Conclave met in the Vatican to choose his successor. Its deliberations were short.

3. A group of cardinals assembled to elect a new pope. The cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church collectively.

   Usage

   • broadly

   Examples

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   [Thomas] VVol[sey]. […] Rome (the Nurſe of Iudgement) / Inuited by your Noble ſelfe, hath ſent / One generall Tongue vnto vs. This good man, / This iuſt and learned Prieſt, Cardnall Campeius [Lorenzo Campeggio], / VVhom once more, I preſent vnto your Highneſſe. / Kin[g Henry VIII]. And once more in mine armes I bid him vvelcome, / And thanke the holy Conclaue for their loues, / They haue ſent me ſuch a Man, I vvould haue vviſh'd for.

4. A closed assembly at which cardinals elect a pope.

   Examples

   in conclave

   papal conclave

   More examples (3)

   The ſaid Duke Ferdinando [I de’ Medici] vvas reputed a vviſe and vvarie Prince, and it vvas a ſolid vviſdom rather than a Formall. He had been long a Cardinall, and at tvvo or three Conclaves (as they call them) or Elections of Popes.

   [W]e find it once said of an eminent Cardinal, by reaſon of his great and apparent Likelihood to ſtep into St. Peter’s Chair, that in two Conclaves he went in Pope, and came out again Cardinal.

   His [Keith O'Brien's] exit came as at least a dozen other cardinals tarnished with accusations that they had failed to remove priests accused of sexually abusing minors were among those gathering in Rome to prepare for the conclave to select a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.

5. A closed assembly at which cardinals elect a pope. A closed, private, or secret meeting, especially one of an ecclesiastical nature.

   Usage

   • broadly

   Examples

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   The morrow after which was the thirde daye of the Counſayle, as the Archbiſhop was ſitting beneth in a conclaue with his felow Biſhops about him, conſulting together, the ſayde Biſhops labored by ſundry wayes and meanes, and with verie vehement perſwaſions and learned arguments to wyll him to obedience and to ſubmit himſelfe to the king, […]

   The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim / In cloſe receſs and ſecret conclave ſat / A thouſand Demy-Gods on golden ſeat's, / Frequent and full.

   Appalled the astonished conclave sate; / With stupid eyes, the men of fate / Gazed on the light inspired form, / And listened for the avenging storm; […]

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   Now you are all dispersed and scattered: no discussions, no committees, little correspondence—and you yourself are ever brooding and ever in conclave, with persons too who I know, for Stephen has told me so, are the preachers of violence: […]

   Some of these [friends of Johnson], in 1764, formed themselves into a club, which gradually became a formidable power in the commonwealth of letters. The verdicts pronounced by this conclave on new books were speedily known over all London, and were sufficient to sell off a whole edition in a day, or to condemn the sheets to the service of the trunk-maker and the pastry-cook.

   No one knew that piece of country, and it was vain to expect that they could make the journey entirely without a contretemps of some kind or other. Therefore the safe return of the Roper party was the usual topic of our nightly conclaves in the verandah.

   It appears that the subordinate conclave of which the deceased was a member was organized by a person who was recognized by the defendant as having full authority to organize and institute subordinate conclaves. A subordinate lodge or conclave was organized, into which, according to the contention of the plaintiff, the deceased was admitted as a charter member, […]

   More than 2,500 of globalisation's movers and shakers gather for their annual four-day mountaintop conclave this week, aware that the world is still being shaken by the events of half a decade ago.

   Still, it was the first real sign of succession planning — a Condé conclave, as one editor joked — and a reminder that Ms. Wintour, arguably the last link to the company’s glory years, will not be around forever.

6. A private chamber or room.

   Usage

   • Obsolete

   Synonyms

   closet

   Examples

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   [W]e in Europe, (notvvithſtanding all the remote Diſcoueries, and Nauigations of this laſt Age) neuer heard any of the leaſt Inkling or Glimſe of this Iſland. […] [W]ee neuer heard tell of any Shipp of theirs, that had been ſeene to arriue vpon any ſhore of Europe; […] For the Situation of it (as his Lordſhip ſaid,) in the ſecret Conclaue of ſuch a vaſt Sea mought cauſe it.

   […] John Zonaras [Joannes Zonaras] […] vvriteth […] That the Interpreters of the Lavv [the translators of the Septuagint] vvere divided into couples, and that they vvere placed every one in a ſeveral Conclave: […]

   [P]lacing the Caſes, Pots, &c. under this Shelter, vvhen either at the firſt Peeping out of the VVinter Concleave, or during the increaſing Heat of Summer, they ſo are ranged and diſpoſed, as to adorn a noble Area of a moſt magnificent Paradiſian Dining-Room to the Top of Hortulean Pomp and Bliſs, ſuperior to all the artificial Furniture of the greateſt Prince's Court.

   [T]he Duchess has fitted up the little room out of her conclave that opens into the garden in the Gothic taste, and made it the prettiest cell you can imagine.

Verb

1. To participate in a closed, private, or secret meeting.

   Usage

   • Intransitive

   Examples

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   [N]or […] were a group of the miserably destitute ever discovered conclaved gravely in the committee-room, where the Board of Directors are usually occupied in breaking hearts—while the said board were hammering might and main in the yard, where the miserably destitute are usually occupied in breaking stones.

   That Mr. [Frederick Apthorp] Paley is no impassionate member of the Camden Brotherhood, as conclaved at Cambridge,—no luke-warm laggard either in his enthusiastic admiration of Middle-Aged Gothicisms, or in his derisive and unworthy deprecation of "Classic Christianisms," will be immediately inferred from the following passage, […]

   [N]oble Rivaulx' shrine, whose frequent tolling bells / Disturbed our holy conclaved monks in hours of fast and prayer, […]

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   We have learned during the past week that a report of a committee to suggest reorganization of a tariff association is not a source of reorganization alone. It is also a source of as much mysterious head-shaking and secret conclaving as if the esteemed and respectable members of the committee were perpetrators of dark, dank deeds.

   The tenants, conclaving together of an evening on doorsteps, had come to the conclusion that the Universal Thrift Club was the very contrivance which they lacked for years.

   The Shrine organization, which staged a similar pageant in 1951 when last they conclaved here, departed from usual policy when it announced this week that the public would be admitted to the spectacle […]

   [A]fter we had gone to press with a succession of annual volumes, [R. Scott] Appleby, Gabriel Almond, emeritus at Stanford, and Emanuel Sivan from Israel, conclaved on Almond's patio and shook, sifted, and ordered common features, coming up with grids that appear in our fifth volume, Fundamentalisms Comprehended.

   So Nit stood guard, pretending to be busy but keeping a lookout for the nuns, who were absent today, conclaving over who would take over Sister Patricia Margaret's stewardship.

2. Of a cardinal: to attend a closed assembly to elect a pope.

   Usage

   • Intransitive

   Examples

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   At Cardinal Verdi's urging the College of Cardinals at last conclaved behind locked doors, slipping into the heavily guarded Sistine Chapel through the underground tunnels for their deliberations.

   "Brothers, we have a Pope!" Bennelli exclaimed. "But I request that you remain conclaved, until I consult the man whom we elected. I shall return within the hour."

Noun

1. a confidential or secret meeting

   Broader terms

   meetinggroup meeting