Other forms: chapels
A chapel is a small building or room used for Christian worship. A private chapel, the chapel at the hospital, a wedding in the chapel.
It covers a room inside a larger building — a side chapel in a cathedral, a chapel in a school or prison — and a small separate church. In Wales and parts of England, chapel means specifically a nonconformist place of worship as against the Anglican church, and going to chapel rather than church was a real social distinction. Note chapel of rest, which is where a body lies before a funeral, and that chaplain comes from the same word.
1nounchapelA small building or room used for worship.
“There is a chapel at the far end of the hospital.”
2nounnonconformistA nonconformist place of worship, in British use.
“The family were chapel rather than church.”
chapel is a place of worship.
Latin cappella meant a little cloak, and it named the shrine that held the cloak of Saint Martin of Tours. The building that housed one relic gave its name to every small place of worship in Europe, and the priest who looked after it became the chaplain.
Latin
cappella — little cloak; chapel
Old French
chapele
Middle English
chapele
English, today
chapel
Built from
From Middle English chapele, chapel, from Old French chapele, from Latin cappella (“little cloak; chapel”), diminutive of cappa (“cloak, cape”). a doublet of capelle. Displaced native Old English bēdhūs. printing office Said to be because printing was first carried on in England in a chapel near Westminster Abbey.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA