sb. Also 5 cripte, 7 cript. [ad. L. crypta: see below. Cf. F. crypte (1721, in Hatzfeld), and see GROT, GROTTO. The L. form was commonly used up to the end of the 18th c.; the example of 1432 appears to be isolated.]
† 1. A grotto or cavern. Obs.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), V. 307. The cripte [Trevisa den] of Seynte Michael in the mownte Gargan.
2. An underground cell, chamber or vault; esp. one beneath the main floor of a church, used as a burial-place, and sometimes as a chapel or oratory.
1789. Brand, Hist. & Antiq. New-Castle-upon-Tyne, I. 368. The chancel of this church stood upon a large vault or crypt.
1841. W. Spalding, Italy & It. Isl., II. 36. The devout, as St Jerome relates, were in the habit of visiting on the Sabbath the tombs of the martyrs in these crypts [the Catacombs].
1883. S. C. Hall, Retrospect, II. 207. He [Turner] was buried in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
† b. An underground passage or tunnel. Obs.
1667. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), II. 32. I design’d … the plot of his canall and garden, with a crypt thro’ the hill.
3. transf. and fig. Recess, secret hiding-place.
1833. A. Fonblanque, Eng. under 7 Administ. (1837), II. 316. [The Ballot] is … the crypt of political honesty.
1842. Tennyson, Will Waterproof, xxiii. Fall’n into the dusty crypt Of darken’d forms and faces.
4. Anat. A small simple tubular or saccular gland; a secretory pit or cavity, as in a mucous membrane; a follicle. Also applied to the cavities in the jaw-bones in which the teeth are developed.
1840. Baly, trans. Müller’s Elem. Physiol., I. 485. Very shallow depressions, such as the simple crypts of the mucous membranes.
1859. J. Tomes, Dental Surg., 5. The crypts of the canine teeth.
5. Comb., as crypt-house.
1873. Tristram, Moab, vi. 182. There are many caves which have been used as dwellings, and several crypt houses.
