crypt.
1. Large vaulted chamber (croft, croud, croude, crowd, crowde, shroud, or undercroft) beneath a church, wholly or partly underground, usually under the chancel, often divided into nave, aisles, and chapels, equipped with altars, and used for religious services and burials beneath the floor. They often had some degree of natural light, and were generally bigger than a confessio, though very small crypts, such as the Anglo-Saxon example at Hexham (C7) were little more than Relic-chambers. Ring-crypts were semicircular crypts inside and below an apse, originating with the basilica of San Pietro, Rome, in c.590: outer ring-crypts (called ambulatories) were characteristic of the Carolingian and Ottonian periods, but a very early example, pre-dating those on the Continent, existed at All Saints Church, Brixworth, Northants. (c. C8 or later).

2. Burial-chamber.

crypt / kript/ • n. 1. an underground room or vault beneath a church, used as a chapel or burial place.2. Anat. a small tubular gland, pit, or recess.

crypt XVIII. — L. crypta — Gr. krúptē vault, sb. use of fem. of kruptós hidden. Cf. GROT.

crypt (kript) n. a small sac, follicle, or cavity; for example, the crypts of Lieberkühn (see Lieberkühn's glands).