A nunnery is a house where nuns live together — in other words, a convent. The word is a little old-fashioned now; many people just say convent, which is the everyday name. A nunnery is a community and a place: chapel, rooms, work, a wall or garden, a rule of life. Though actually, English has an awkward extra shadow around this word. In older plays, especially Hamlet’s “Get thee to a nunnery,” some listeners hear a bitter joke, as if nunnery could also mean a brothel. That is not how you should use the word today, and it is not the main meaning in a learner’s dictionary. For clear, kind English, nunnery still means the nuns’ house.