Pl. adyta. [L. adyt-um a. Gr. ἄδυτον prop. adj. = not to be entered; f. ἀ not + -δυτ-ος vbl. adj. of δύ-ειν to enter. Commonly used in the L. form sing. and pl.; at first also in the Gr., though it had already been anglicised by Greene as ADYT.] The innermost part of a temple; the secret shrine whence oracles were delivered; hence fig. A private or inner chamber, a sanctum.
1673. Holyday, Juvenal, 235. The adyta, whence the oracles were delivered … The Romane temples … having the ἄδυτον, answerable to the quire, unto which only priests might come.
1778. Bp. Lowth, On Isaiah (ed. 12), 339. Adytum means a cavern, or the hidden part of the temple.
1800. Coleridge, Ess. on Own Times, I. 247. [He] carries with him the habits of a disputing club into the adyta of the Cabinet.
1859. Is. Taylor, Logic in Theol., 46. To give the foot a place in the adytum of intellectual & moral life.
1863. W. Thornbury, True as Steel, II. 158. But the prettiest sight of all was in the adytum—the inner room of all—where the Duchess herself sat.
