Definition of "refectory"

They compare very well with similar cafes elsewhere and the quality, for example, is far better and the price cheaper than in my college refectory.

1964 April, “Letters: London stations—a consumers' guide”, in Modern Railways, page 274

With a clattering of chairs, upended shell cases, benches, and ottomans, Pirate's mob gather at the shores of the great refectory table, a southern island well across a tropic or two from chill Croydon.

1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow