(Cella) in ancient writers, denotes a place or apartment usually under ground, 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*, *Ollearia*, *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 lupanar_, _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 _inscripta cella_ in Martial, lib. xi. Ep. 46.

*Cella* was also applied to the bedchambers of domestics and servants; probably as being low and narrow.—Cicero, inveighing against the luxury of Antony, says the beds in the very *cellae* 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 *calidaria*; to which may be added a fourth, called *cella affa*, and sometimes *judaiorium*.

*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*.

*Cella* is also used for a lesser or subordinate sort of monastery 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 *cell* from the Hebrew נֶסֶר, i.e., "a prison, or place where any thing 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 honeycombs, which are always regular hexagons. See **BEE**.

in **Botany**, is applied to the hollow place 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 unicellular, bilocular, trilocular, &c.

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