vivarium

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun an indoor enclosure for keeping and raising living animals and plants and observing them under natural conditions

Borrowed from Latin vīvārium.

Tigellinus emptied the vivaria of all Italian cities, not excepting the smaller ones. — Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, Henryk Sienkiewicz
MORAL And now, my dear little man, what should we learn from this parable? _We should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things, I am not exactly sure which: but one thing, at least, we may learn, and that is this--when we see efts in the pond, never to throw stones at them, or catch them with crooked pins, or put them into vivariums with sticklebacks, that the sticklebacks may prick them in their poor little stomachs, and make them jump out of the glass into somebody's work-box, and so come to a bad end. — The Water-Babies: A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby, Charles Kingsley
She was an excellent sportswoman; a rare dancer; there were many men interested in her; she dined out almost every other evening at some social affair blooming belatedly in May (most of her friends were already settled in their country homes, and she was still in town only because her place on Long Island was in disorder due to a two months' delay in the completion of alterations caused by labor difficulties); she had made a study of beetles; she had a tiny vivarium in the apartment and here she would sit studying her pets with an interest and patience not unlike that of old Fabre upon his stony farm. — Children of the Whirlwind, Leroy Scott

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