exequy
Americannoun
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Usually exequies. funeral rites or ceremonies; obsequies.
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a funeral procession.
Usage
What is an exequy? An exequy is a funeral procession, such as a hearse carrying the deceased person and cars of mourners driving in a slow line to a cemetery for burial. An exequy is also any formal ceremony for the burial, internment, or cremation of a deceased person in a religion or culture. The term can be used to reference a specific rite such as a religious service or the entire process from funeral to burial. A rare word, exequy is almost never used to describe one funeral or funeral rite, although it’s used to describe one funeral procession. Instead, the plural exequies is used to discuss more than one funeral or funeral rites, as well as more than one funeral procession. Example: The cars in the long exequy moved slowly through our neighborhood on their way to the cemetery.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of exequy
1350–1400; Middle English exequies (plural) < Medieval Latin, Latin exequiae literally, train of followers, equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + sequ ( ī ) to follow) + -iae, feminine plural noun suffix
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.
Even allowing for the high rhetorical tint required of such exequies 150 years ago, it's hard to think of an American artist whose death, tomorrow, would inspire such sentiments.
From Time Magazine Archive
The exequies over the body were as solemn as they were premature; dust devils of argument spun through art magazines, scattering the ashes.
From Time Magazine Archive
Their exequies are thus freed from the artificial, grotesque, and pagan horror given by obscene mutes, frightful hearse, horses, and feathers.
From Robert Falconer by MacDonald, George
Also I bequeath for two candles to burn at my exequies 30 lbs. of wax.
From Life in a Mediæval City Illustrated by York in the XVth Century by Benson, Edwin
Retire, brave followers, unto Troynouant, Where we shall celebrate these exequies, And place young Locrine in his father's tomb.
From Locrine/Mucedorus by Shakespeare (spurious and doubtful works)
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.
