Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

Noun.

[L., p. p. of

sancire

to consecrate.]

A sacred place; hence, a place of retreat; a room reserved for personal use;

as, an editor’s

sanctum

‖

Sanctum sanctorum

[L.]

the Holy of Holies; the most holy place, as in the Jewish temple.

sanctum ‎(plural sanctums)

A place set apart, as with a sanctum sanctorum; a sacred or private place; a private retreat or workroom.
- 1848, Charlotte Bronte, chapter 17, in Jane Eyre:
  For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me, – "a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."
- 2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist:
  His colleagues quailed when, in 1986, he first sat on the court as a brash 50-year-old whose experience had been mostly as a combative government lawyer: a justice who, in that sanctum of columns and deep judicial silence, was suddenly firing questions like grapeshot.

sānctum