oubliette

[Bailey]

ou·bli·ette (bl-t)
n.
A dungeon with a trapdoor in the ceiling as its only means of entrance or exit.

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[French, from oublier, to forget, from Old French oblider, from Vulgar Latin *obltre, from Latin obltus, past participle of oblvsc; see lei- in Indo-European roots.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


oubliette [oo-blee-ett]
Noun
History a dungeon, the only entrance to which is a trap door in the ceiling [French oublier to forget]
Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

a place to be forgotten in....

mark stuck-in-oubliette-again Bailey

[Jeff hook]

This is taken from a religious blog. I'm not trying to proselytize. This was the best photo in the first few pages of Google Images responses and I thought it was appropriate to let the photographer set the context:

http://craftycurate.blogs.com/pilgrims_ ... _the_.html

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July 18, 2005

The Cry of the Forgotten

I'm not sure what got me thinking about prisoners of conscience today. On second thoughts, I think it was this post from John Davies, and also my reading today in Isaiah 5:8.

"He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed
He looked for righteousness, but heard cries of distress"

It reminded me of a visit to Warwick Castle, where in the back of the dungeon is an "oubliette" where people were thrown in, and simply forgotten. It profoundly impacted me at the time, and I took the following picture...

Jeff Hook

[Bailey]

I like the pictures I've seen of oubliettes just showing the ceiling, it looks like one is inside a largish brick tube, truly a place to be forgotten.

mB

[Jeff hook]

Right. I thought at first that I'd erred, and that this snapshot showed "an open dungeon room,"
rather than "a true oubliette." Then I realized that all we can see of the oubliette is its iron grate in the floor of this "oubliette anteroom." Wow.

Jeff Hook

[Jeff hook]

I'm not sure about the identity of the author of the blog from which I obtained the above text and image. He may be Richard Lyall, but time's limited and I've not been able to find a clear statement of his identity.

He also provides this image on the same blog page which I cited. He may have created this image himself, to suggest the view from inside an oubliette, towards the exterior, but it seems any prisoner in such a cell woudn't be likely to see daylight streaming in through the ceiling grate in the forgotten recesses of a stone dungeon below a castle. It also seems unlikely that an oubliette would be as "spacious" as this image suggests...




Jeff Hook

[Perry]

While not a true obliette, the cell that housed the Man in the Iron Mask on Île Sainte-Marguerite was less than cheery.

[Slava]

Let's not forget the pit into which a very young Jennifer Connelly falls in the movie Labyrinth. I think that may even be where I learned this word.

[Bailey]

There are real oubliettes in old castles in Europe. This is a real thing not just something in 'THE MOVIES'. People were dropped in these small brick rooms and left there.

mb