refectory

What is the purpose of a room called a refectory?

From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2023

Thus admonished, we made our way to the refectory, expecting a small meal at best, perhaps a plain broth and dry bread.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2021

The painting, in oil on canvas, was commissioned by her own convent of Santa Caterina; once completed, it was hung on the nuns’ refectory wall.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 19, 2019

There’s chili cooking on the refectory tables onstage, for the audience’s consumption at intermission.

From New York Times ● Apr. 8, 2019

“You have minds,” Bastian murmurs one evening in the refectory, each boy hunching almost imperceptibly farther over his food as the commandant’s finger grazes the back of his uniform.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Designers are conjuring all kinds of nonkitchen-y arenas, like the refectories of old boarding schools, a signature of Christopher Peacock, the English-born kitchen designer once known for his all-white offerings.

From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2017

The abbey was in itself a masterpiece of beauty, and the great block formed by refectories and dormitories stood at right angles to it.

From The Secret Chamber at Chad by Evelyn Everett-Green

Monastic refectories had pulpits, which the reader occupied when he read to his brethren during meals.

From English Villages by P. H. (Peter Hampson) Ditchfield

Two detached buildings, supposed to have been refectories, are now converted into offices.

From Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11 Historical, Entertaining & Commercial; Alphabetically Arranged. 11 Volume set. by Thomas Cantrell Dugdale

Heretical writings continued to find entrance into many of the religious houses, and were even read aloud in refectories, and used as text-books by the professors.

From Studies from Court and Cloister: being essays, historical and literary dealing mainly with subjects relating to the XVIth and XVIIth centuries by J. M. (Jean Mary) Stone