| gen. |
oubliettes (A secret dungeon, access to which was gained only through a trap-door above; often having a secret pit below, into which the prisoner might be precipitated. 1819 Scott Ivanhoe xlii, The place was utterly dark–the oubliette, as I suppose, of their accursed convent. a 1845 Hood Knight & Dragon xxviii, In the dark oubliette Let yon merchant forget That he e'er had a bark richly laden. 1872 Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. lxix. 15 Forgotten like one in the oubliettes of the Bastille. 1877 Tennyson Harold ii. ii, The deep-down oubliette, Down thirty feet below the smiling day–In blackness. OED Alexander Demidov) |
