a. Also 7 cloysteral(l, cloystrall, 9 cloisteral. [f. CLOISTER + -AL, after L. claustrāl-is claustral.]
1. Pertaining to a cloister; monastic.
1605. Daniel, Queens Arcadia (1717), 151. A Cloistral Exercise, Where Men shut out retird, and sequestred seem to sympathize With innocent and plain Simplicity.
1651. Reliq. Wotton (1672), 39. Making a holy retreat to a Cloysteral life.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., 328. The pressure of practical life makes culture for cultures sake sound like cloistral and pedantic talk.
2. Of persons: Dwelling in a cloister; belonging to a monastic order. Also absol.
1624. Donne, Serm. Rev. vii. 9. Salvation is a more extensive thing then sullen cloystrall, that have walled salvation in a monastery take it to be. Ibid. (a. 1631), Poems (1650), 189. So cloysterall men Have Vertue in Melancholy.
3. Of the type of a cloister.
1844. I. Williams, Baptistery, 249. Through cloistral glades.
1883. C. H. Farnham, in Harpers Mag., 383/2. The house is rather cloistral, with its few small windows with double sashes curtained with wall-paper.