celure

English

Alternative forms

• cellar, selar, silour

Etymology

Uncertain; apparently related to Medieval Latin celatorium, caelatura, via unattested Old French forms.

Noun

celure (plural celures)

1. (now rare, historical) A canopy, especially one over a bed or altar.
   • c. 1485, Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur:

     And whan these thre spyndels were shapen / she made hem to be fastned vpon the selar of the bedde […] .

   • 1530, John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse:

     Cellar for a bedde, ciel de lit.

   • 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter V, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 38:

     [A]t dawn, if the archon is still enjoying himself, they'll let down the curtains to exclude the light, and perhaps even raise the celure over the garden.

   • 2001, Judith Middleton-Stewart, Inward Purity and Outward Splendour, page 231:

     Above the rood-screen, the painted celure of twenty painted panels carries symbols of the Passion […] .