1. Also known as a columbary, a vault with niches for urns containing ashes of the dead: "At the funeral, the eldest child placed the urn of the ashes of the parent in the columbarium at the town’s cemetery."
2. A dovecote, or a pigeonhole in a dovecote (or dovecot), is a roost for domesticated pigeons: "There was an artistically designed columbarium for the pigeons in the corner of the farm yard."
3. Etymology: from Latin, columba, dove (pigeon); then it came to mean "a sepurchre for urns" and a "dovecote"."