Other forms: sanctuaries
A sanctuary is a protected place where hunted creatures cannot be touched. A bird sanctuary, a wildlife sanctuary, a donkey sanctuary.
The older sense is a place of refuge for people: in medieval England a fugitive could claim sanctuary in a church and could not lawfully be seized there. That survives in the phrase seek sanctuary and in the modern political term sanctuary city. A sanctuary is also the holiest part of a church or temple, around the altar. Note the wider abstract sense: somewhere quiet is a sanctuary from whatever you have left behind.
1nounsanctuaryA protected place where hunted animals are safe.
“The donkey sanctuary takes in animals that have been badly treated.”
synonyms: reserve, refuge
2nounsafetyA place of safety for a person.
“The library was a sanctuary from the whole building.”
3nounholiestThe holiest part of a church or temple.
“Only the clergy went into the sanctuary.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
sanctuary is a place of safety.
Also accepted in games: reserve, refuge
Latin sanctuarium meant a holy place, from sanctus, holy. The right of sanctuary depended on that holiness — the church could not be entered by force — so the wildlife sanctuary is named after a medieval legal protection for people.
Latin
sanctus — holy, sacred
Old French
saintuaire
Middle English
seyntuarie
English, today
sanctuary
From Middle English seyntuarie, from Old French saintuaire, from Latin sanctuarium (“a sacred place, a shrine, a private cabinet, in Medieval Latin - also temple, church, churchyard, cemetery, right of asylum”), from Latin sanctus (“holy, sacred”); see saint.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA