entomb
Americanverb (used with object)
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to place in a tomb; bury; inter.
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to serve as a tomb for.
Florentine churches entomb many great men.
verb
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to place in or as if in a tomb; bury; inter
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to serve as a tomb for
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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entombsimple
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entombssimple
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have entombedperfect
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has entombedperfect
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am entombingprogressive
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are entombingprogressive
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is entombingprogressive
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have been entombingperfect progressive
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has been entombingperfect progressive
Past
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entombedsimple
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had entombedperfect
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was entombingprogressive
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were entombingprogressive
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had been entombingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of entomb
1425–75; late Middle English entoumben < Middle French entomber. See en- 1, tomb
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:
Low property prices in the country mean that for many, it is more affordable to entomb the ashes of relatives in an empty apartment than pay for funeral costs.
From BBC ● Mar. 31, 2026
After fasting, monks would entomb themselves in a stone chamber underground or in a coffin, chanting prayers until they passed on.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 19, 2024
The idea is that the salt from which the subterranean landfill is carved will shift and eventually entomb the barrels and special boxes that are stacked within disposal rooms.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 8, 2022
Army Corps of Engineers decided to entomb the river in concrete to speed up water flow and prevent flooding, a project that was completed in the 1960s.
From New York Times ● Nov. 21, 2022
Together with verbal coffins like model and level in which writers entomb their actors and actions, the English language provides them with a dangerous weapon called nominalization: making something into a noun.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
John Boorman’s bold, unnerving crime film “Point Blank” entombs its potent emotions within opaque performances, stripped-down dialogue and a cool-to-the-touch visual style.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 15, 2026
In a tragic extension of this structure, Moonlight entombs even Chiron’s adulthood in the confines of the closet.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2018
Joy’s mother, defeated by divorce, entombs herself in her bedroom, a man-fearing Miss Havisham addicted to soap operas.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 31, 2015
The oily shale that entombs those fossils was laid down as lake sediments about 47 million years ago, says Walter Joyce, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 20, 2012
The earth entombs emblems of greatness, of riches, and of man's vain-glorious possessions; buildings have been reared by successive generations on mounds which embowelled the ruined mansions of predecessors.
From Observations on the Mussulmauns of India Descriptive of Their Manners, Customs, Habits and Religious Opinions Made During a Twelve Years' Residence in Their Immediate Society by Crooke, William
Spontaneous applause erupted — and even some tears were shed — at the battered parking structure where Gil had been entombed since the two temblors struck within seconds of each other on June 24.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 5, 2026
In scenes that resemble a dystopian sci-fi movie, their widespread use has left swathes of frontline cities and fields entombed in webs of cable.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
“You can tell a lot about a street by the type of chairs and how they’re placed,” said Knapp, who walked 2.5 miles round trip for groceries and beer while his car was entombed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026
And, in the San Francisco Bay Area, burrowing rodents may be digging into entombed trash at a landfill-turned-park, unloosing explosive levels of methane.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 19, 2025
Gradually the reason for his silence was hidden away, entombed somewhere deep in the soothing folds of the fact of it.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
“Washington’s clearest nonproliferation wins against Iran in the war were stopping all uranium enrichment at declared facilities and entombing enriched uranium stockpiles,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
In March, Chinese authorities banned entombing cremated remains in empty apartments, a practice that took off as mourners tried to dodge rising funeral costs.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
Two days later, they retrieved the bulldozer and filled the hole, entombing those stories in the old dining room forever.
From Salon ● May 29, 2023
Engineers anticipated that the ice—already a dozen meters thick—would continue to accumulate in northwestern Greenland, permanently entombing what they left behind.
From Science Magazine ● Aug. 4, 2016
Hundreds of tumuli scattered over the country, entombing kysts, coffins, fragments of skeletons, and rude pottery, and not less the names of streets and places, supply interesting testimony of their existence.
From A Month in Yorkshire by White, Walter
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.
