graveclothes

[ greyv-klohz, -klohthz ]

plural noun
  1. the clothes or wrappings in which a body is buried; cerements.

Origin of graveclothes

1
First recorded in 1525–35; grave1 + clothes

Words Nearby graveclothes

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use graveclothes in a sentence

  • Art has no business with real graveclothes when she wants tragic drapery—has she?

  • Folding the graveclothes decently over the body, Luke prepared to depart.

    Rookwood | William Harrison Ainsworth
  • Then she turned and passed away into the shadow of the trees; I heard her graveclothes sweep upon the grass.

    Montezuma's Daughter | H. Rider Haggard
  • And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.

British Dictionary definitions for grave clothes

grave clothes

pl n
  1. the wrappings in which a dead body is interred

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012