[a. F. catacombe, ad. It. catacomba (= Pr. cathacumba, Sp. catacumba):—late L. Catacumbas, a name of which even the original application is uncertain: see below.]
1. A subterranean place for the burial of the dead, consisting of galleries or passages with recesses excavated in their sides for tombs.
a. Representing the Latin catacumbas (catecumpas), or (?) ad catacumbas, used as early as the 5th c. in connection with the subterranean cemetery under the Basilica of St. Sebastian, on the Appian Way, near Rome, in or near which the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul were said to have been deposited: this is the only sense in which the word occurs in English before the 17th c.
971. Blickl. Hom., 193. Eal folc Romwara befeng þa lichoman on þære stowe Catacumbe þy weʓe þe hate Appia.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 119/1. Whan thou hast wasshed it [my body] thou shalt burye it at Cathacombes by the appostlis. Ibid., 205/2. The grekes … threwe the bodyes [of the two apostles] in a pitte at catacumbas.
1636. Abp. Williams, Holy Table (1637), 220. The famous place called Catacombe (a word of mongrell composition, half Greek, half Latin, and signifying as much as near the Tombs), a kind of vaulted Church under the earth.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), II. 207. From this church a pair of stairs leads down into the Roman catacombs.
1854. Cdl. Wiseman, Fabiola, II. ii. The cemetery of St. Sebastian [among] other names had that of Ad Catacumbas: the meaning of this word is completely unknown.
1870. W. B. Marriott, Test. Catacombs, 1. Catacombs—this name properly applies only to one particular cemetery beneath the church of St. Sebastian.
b. In later times applied (in the plural) to all the subterranean cemeteries lying around Rome (which, after having been long covered up and forgotten, were fortuitously discovered in 1578). In the singular applied to a single crypt or gallery.
1662. J. Bargrave, Pope Alex. VII. (1867), 121. Ten miles, almost, round about Rome, under the vineyards and cornfields, are hollow caves, streets, rooms, chappells, finely painted, &c., which is called Rome underground, or the Catacombe.
1683–4. Robinson, in Phil. Trans., XXIX. 479. Those Quarries became Catacombes.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 129, ¶ 7. There has lately been found an Humane Tooth in a Catecomb [at Rome].
1782. Priestley, Corrupt. Chr., I. IV. 395. It was … after the discovery of the Catacombs.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., II. 35. Sextus, bishop of Rome, had been slain in the catacombs.
1870. W. B. Marriott (title), Testimony of the Catacombs, and of other Monuments of Christian Art.
1876. E. Venables, in Dict. Chr. Antiq., 313/2. The catacombs became places of refuge in times of persecution (… though not to the extent popularly credited). Ibid., 314/1. At the entrance of the Jewish Catacomb on the Via Appia.
c. Extended to similar works elsewhere, as at Naples, at Syracuse, in Egypt, etc.
1705. Berkeley, Cave of Dunmore, Wks. 1871, IV. 508. Those artificial caves of Rome and Naples called catacombs.
1717. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., II. xlvii. 39. During his wonderful stay in the Egyptian catacombs.
1732. Lediard, Sethos, II. IX. 327. Bury the king’s corpse in the catacombs of Utica.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 271. Under the mountains adjoining the Kiow are several catacombs.
1858. R. Vaughan, Ess. & Rem., I. 5. The Necropolis, with its Catacombs.
1862. Stanley, Jew. Ch. (1877), I. xv. 375.
2. In a wider sense, applied to any subterranean receptacle of dead bodies, as the catacombs of Paris, which are worked-out stone-quarries (see quot.); also fig. place of entombment of former races of animals, etc.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 359/2. The catacombs of Paris could not be called catacombs with any propriety until very recent times, when, by a decree of the French government, all the churchyards … were emptied of their contents, and the skulls and bones sent to the spacious subterranean quarries, where they are now arranged in a manner that is grotesquely horrible.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., iv. (1876), 80. This point being a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct races.
3. transf. A place arranged with crypts and recesses, like the catacombs.
1884. Harper’s Mag., Nov., 828/1. These are, indeed, catacombs of books, with lettered avenues and numbered streets but twenty-six inches wide.
b. spec. A compartment in a cellar with recesses for storing wine.
1795. Edin. Advert., 2 Jan., 2/1. One half of the sunk flat or cellars, neatly laid out and furnished with catacombs.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., ix. He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb.
[NOTE.—The name regularly applied to the Roman catacombs during the first four centuries, when they were in use, as well as during the succeeding four or five centuries, while they were still objects of attention and care, was cœmētērium. Catacumbas, catecumbas, appears in the 4th (?), 5th, and following centuries only in connection with the name of the cemetery of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way, which is distinguished as Cœmeterium Catacumbas, or shortly Catacumbas. In other cases Catacumbas appears to be used as name of the locality, or perhaps of the part of the Appian Way, in which this cemetery lay. The earliest instances are:
a. 400[?]. Inscr., in Orelli, 4575. Comparaui … uiuus in catacum[b]as a[d] lumenarem a [f]ossore …
411 [or 354[?]]. Martyrology (Bucher ad Canon. Pasch., 237) Depositio martyrum … Decimo tertio Kalendas Februarij. Fabiani in Callisti et Sebastiani in Catacumbas. … Tertio Kalendas Iulij. Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostiense.
a. 600. (List of Cemeteries) Cimeterium catecumbas ad St. Sebastianum Via Appia.
a. 600. Greg. Magn., Epist., iv. Ind. xii. Ep. 30. In loco qui dicitur catacumbas collocata sunt.
a. 700. Imperia Cesarum (Eccard Corp. Hist. Med. Æv., I. 31) Maxentius [A.D. 311] Termas in Palatio fecit et Circum in Catecumpas.
c. 705. Bæda, De Sex Æt. Mund., ad ann. 4327. Damasus … fecit basilicam … aliam in catacumbas ubi jacuerunt corpora sancta apostolorum Petri et Pauli.
a. 900. Anastasius, Hadrian, I. § 343. In loco qui appellatur catacumbas ubi corpus beati Sebastiani martyris cum aliis quiescit.
a. 1300. De Mirabil. Romæ, Cœmeteria Calisti juxta Catacumbas.
The evidence does not settle the disputed question whether the name originally belonged to the cemetery, or (as the majority of investigators now appear to think) to the locality. Some of the other cemeteries were named from their locality, e.g., Ostiense, Ad Septem Columbas, Ad Duas Lauros (names of taverns), but most from a personal name as Calisti, Domitillæ, Cyriacæ. The word catacumbas was in later times treated as an acc. pl., with nom. sing. catacumba; but in earlier use it appears to be invariable. To account for this, some have surmised that the full name was Ad Catacumbas, others that it was itself a Greek phrase κατὰ κύμβας. The recorded meanings of Gr. κύμβη are ‘the hollow of a vessel, a drinking vessel, cup, or bowl (whence a possibility that κατὰ κύμβας was the name of a tavern); a boat, L. cymba; a knapsack, wallet.’ But the question how a Greek phrase was likely to become the name of something near Rome, when it is not known what that thing was, is manifestly futile; still more profitless are conjectures that the word might contain the Greek preposition combined with a Latin, Sabine, or Celtic word or root, which may be seen in works or articles treating of the Catacombs. There appear to be no examples of the application of the word to the other Roman subterranean cemeteries in ancient times, though catacumba is apparently used by Joannes Diaconus (9th c.) of those of Naples: see Du Cange. But the actual extension of the name belongs to modern times, since the discovery of ‘Subterranean Rome.’]
