A member of a strict Catholic order of monks — properly the Cistercians of the Strict Observance — who live together in a monastery, work with their hands, pray many times a day starting long before dawn, and keep silence. The silence is what everyone knows about them, and it is worth being accurate: they are not under a vow never to speak. They speak when it is necessary, and to their superiors, and there are set times; what they avoid is casual chatter, and traditionally they used a sign language among themselves. So "they do not speak" is the popular picture rather than the exact rule. There are Trappist nuns too, often called Trappistines. As an adjective the word describes anything of that order — a Trappist monastery, Trappist silence. And there is one use nearly everyone meets first: Trappist beer. A handful of these monasteries brew beer to support themselves, and "Trappist" on a bottle is a protected label meaning it was genuinely brewed inside the walls under the monks' control. Chimay, Westmalle, Orval and the famous Westvleteren are the ones you will see. People also say "Trappist silence" loosely about anyone who has gone very quiet.