galilee

From late Middle English galilie, from Old French galilee, from Medieval Latin galilaea, from Latin Galilaea (“Galilee”). Possibly the allusion is to Galilee being an outlying region of Biblical Palestine.

galilee (plural galilees)

1. (architecture) A narthex, particularly in the United Kingdom and the Church of England; a vestibule, a fully-enclosed yet porch-like structure, leading to the main body of an English ecclesiastical building.
2. In certain Syriac Christian churches, the baptistry.

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “galilee”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

galilee

1. plural of galilea