Monastery vs. Lamasery — What's the Difference?

A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which may be a chapel, church, or temple, and may also serve as an oratory, or in the case of communities anything from a single building housing only one senior and two or three junior monks or nuns, to vast complexes and estates housing tens or hundreds.

In Tibetan Buddhism, a monastery presided over by a lama.

A community of persons, especially monks, bound by vows to a religious life and often living in partial or complete seclusion.

(Buddhism) A monastery for lamas.

The dwelling place of such a community.

A monastery or convent of lamas, in Tibet, Mongolia, etc.

A residence for monks or others who have taken religious vows.

A monastery for lamas

A house of religious retirement, or of secusion from ordinary temporal concerns, especially for monks; - more rarely applied to such a house for females.

The residence of a religious community