CELLA, in ancient writers, denotes a place or apartment usually underground, and vaulted, in which were stored up some sort of necessaries, as wine, honey, and the like; and according to which it was called Cella Vinaria, Olearia, Mellaria, &c. The word is formed from the Latin celare, to conceal.

CELLA was also used for the lodge or habitation of a common prostitute, as being anciently under ground, hence also denominated fornix.

Intravit calidum veteri centone lipanar, Et cellam vacuam. Juv Sat. vi. ver. 121.

On which place an ancient scholiast remarks, that the names of the whores were written on the doors of their several cells; by which we learn the meaning of infrigita cella in Martial, lib. xi. ep. 46.

CELLA was also applied to the bed-chambers of domestics and servants; probably as being low and narrow.—Cicero, inveighing against the luxury of Antony, says, the beds in the very cells of his servants were spread with pompous purple coverlets.

CELLA is also applied to the members or apartments of baths. Of these there were three principal, called frigidaria, tepidaria, and caldaria; to which may be added a fourth, called cella affia, and sometimes fudatoria.

CELLA likewise signified the adyta, or inmost and most retired parts of temples, wherein the images of the gods to whom the edifices were consecrated were preserved. In this sense we meet with cella Jovis, cella Concordiae, &c.

CELL is also used for a lesser or subordinate part of a minister dependent on a great one, by which it was erected, and continues still to be governed. The great abbeys in England had most of them cells in places distant from the mother abbey, to which they were accountable, and from which they received their superiors. The alien priories in England were cells to abbeys in Normandy, France, Italy, &c. The name cell was also given to rich and considerable monasteries not dependent on any other.

CELL signifies also a little apartment or chamber, such as those wherein the ancient monks, solitaries, and hermits, lived in retirement. Some derive the word from the Hebrew כֶּלֶא, i.e., "a prison, or place where anything is shut up."

The same name is still retained in divers monasteries. The dormitory is frequently divided into so many cells or lodges. The Carthusians have each a separate house, which serves them as a cell. The hall wherein the Roman conclave is held, is divided, by partitions, into divers cells, for the several cardinals to lodge in.

CELL is also a name given to the little divisions in honey-combs, which are always regular hexagons. See BEE.

in botany, is applied to the hollow places between the partitions in the pods, husks, and other seed-vessels of plants; according as there is one, two, three, &c. of these cells, the vessel is said to be unilocular, bilocular, trilocular, &c.

CELLS, in anatomy, little bags, or bladders, where fluids or other matters are lodged; called loculi, cellulae, &c. Thus the cellular adipose are the little cells where the fat is contained; cellule in the colon, are spaces wherein the excrements are detained till voided, &c.