entomb
Americanverb (used with object)
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entombs,
present (3rd person singular)
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entombed,
past participle, past
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entombing
present participle
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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 shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste left from decades of bomb-making and nuclear weapons research.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 26, 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
Darkness entombs us all and history is dumb.
From The Wanderer's Necklace by Henry Rider Haggard
Nearby infrastructure is shattered and entombed beneath the deposits.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
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 essence, if someone was just scratching on a bit of concrete, we'd be able to pick that up," he says, "even if they are entombed in the building".
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 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
As the days went by, Kathleen began to waste away, for she only truly lived when she slept at night, entombed in the prison of smoke from the magical wreath.
From "Ash" by Malinda Lo
“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
This actually happened multiple times—at least twice, says Rühli—over about 1000 years, entombing young men separated from one another by centuries in the salt they’d come to mine.
From National Geographic ● Aug. 7, 2023
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
They were content therefore with entombing their dead either in small brick vaults, under large terra-cotta covers, or in coffins of the latter material.
From A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria, v. 1 by Sir Walter Armstrong
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.
