- a variation of sepulcher.
sepulchre
Americannoun
noun
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a burial vault, tomb, or grave
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Also called: Easter sepulchre. a separate alcove in some medieval churches in which the Eucharistic elements were kept from Good Friday until the Easter ceremonies
verb
Etymology
Origin of sepulchre
C12: from Old French sépulcre, from Latin sepulcrum, from sepelīre to bury
Explanation
There are many possible resting places for your body once you die, and a sepulcher is the best option if you want a fancy room made entirely from stone. Think it over, because you can only choose once. Crypts, mausoleums, sarcophagi, sepulchers: each one is a place to bury someone, with slight variations. A sepulcher (or if you’re British you’ll spell it sepulchre) is basically a stone room with a stone coffin where your body lies. The word comes from the Latin sepulcrum, which means “burial place,” for obvious reasons. Pronouncing sepulcher could trick you, because the ch actually sounds like a k: "SEP-ul-ker."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
In some accounts he is buried with his wife and two children next to the tomb of Jesus — the ultimate martyr’s sepulchre.
From Time ● Mar. 30, 2016
It depicts a stern risen Christ on the edge of a sepulchre; the city's name means "holy sepulchre" in Italian.
From Reuters ● Nov. 16, 2014
Maurice, meanwhile, is terrified of mouldering in respectable suburbia, dragging some poor virgin into the sepulchre with him.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 5, 2013
By Ottillie Gobel Reed, onetime wife of the famed "Sausage King"; from Sigwart John Reed, architect; at Brooklyn, N. Y. Mrs. Gobel met Dr. Reed while selecting a suitable sepulchre for her first husband.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier—dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading—sparkled in the dim.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
Thus thy spirit grew faint, thy strength dried up, and the dust of thy scribes has sepulchred thee, a living mummy….
From The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) by Nahum Slouschz
The Brook Farmers have nearly all joined the congregation of the beyond, but they are sepulchred in the four quarters of the globe.
From My Friends at Brook Farm by John Van Der Zee Sears
The history of this village has all the wildness of romance, and, indeed, throughout this land of sepulchred cities the genius of romance sits enthroned.
From Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II. by John L. Stephens
Monuments and temples, sepulchred stones and pyramids, rise up to declare the antiquity of the Negro races.
From History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens by George Washington Williams
The present orthography has introduced an awkward mode of writing the derivatives, for example, centred, sceptred, sepulchred; whereas Milton and Pope wrote these words as regular derivatives of center, scepter, sepulcher, thus, 'Sceptered king.'
From Noah Webster American Men of Letters by Horace E. Scudder
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
