Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A wicker receptacle used in ancient Rome for carrying sacred utensils in a procession.
  • noun A stone-lined grave, especially a tomb consisting of a pit lined with stones and often having a lid of stone or wood.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A place of interment belonging to an early or prehistoric period, and consisting of a stone chest formed in general of two parallel rows of stones fixed on their edges, and covered by similar flat stones, or sometimes in rocky districts hewn in the rock itself.
  • noun A case; a chest; a basket.
  • noun A box, usually of bronze, used in the toilet. Several beautiful cists ornamented with elaborate designs, both in relief and incised, have been found in the parts of Italy anciently called Magna Græcia and Ethuria.
  • noun See cyst.
  • noun A recess in a cliff-house, walled off from the main room.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Antiq.) A box or chest. Specifically: (a) A bronze receptacle, round or oval, frequently decorated with engravings on the sides and cover, and with feet, handles, etc., of decorative castings. (b) A cinerary urn. See Illustration in Appendix.
  • noun See Cyst.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A small receptacle for sacred utensils carried in festivals in ancient Greece
  • noun archaeology A crypt cut into rock, chalk, or a tree trunk, especially a coffin formed by placing stone slabs on edge and topping them with a horizontal slab or slabs.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin cista, from Greek kistē.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for Welsh cist faen, stone chest : cist, chest (ultimately from Latin cista, box; see cist) + maen, stone.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin cista, from Ancient Greek κίστη (kistē).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Welsh cist faen (see kistvaen, cistvaen, from Latin cist

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