graveyard

American  

[grayv-yahrd] / ˈgreɪvˌjɑrd /

noun

• graveyards
  plural

1. a burial ground, often associated with smaller rural churches, as distinct from a larger urban or public cemetery.

2. Informal. graveyard shift.

3. a place in which obsolete or derelict objects are kept.

   an automobile graveyard.

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graveyard British  

/ ˈɡreɪvˌjɑːd /

noun

1. a place for graves; a burial ground, esp a small one or one in a churchyard

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• graveyards
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of graveyard

First recorded in 1765–75; grave ¹ + yard ²

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Compare meaning

How does graveyard compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• cemetery vs. graveyard

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Explanation

A graveyard is an area where the dead are buried. When you walk through a historic graveyard, you'll see many beautiful old headstones and tombs. Other names for a graveyard are "cemetery" and "burial ground." It's slightly more common to use graveyard, a word that dates from about 1683, for the burial site near a church. If you work at a graveyard, you might care for the grave markers and plants. If, on the other hand, you work a graveyard shift, that simply means you work late at night.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

graveyard graveyards

In Verona, N.J., a 12-foot, laser-eyed animatronic skeleton groans and shifts its gargantuan frame over a graveyard of skulls.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

A graveyard caretaker wonders, “Why did they have to go and dig up Jason? Some people have a strange idea of entertainment.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2026

But that kind of optimism can quickly start to sound more like whistling past the graveyard.

From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026

For years, Khalwinder Singh Bhengura lived an unassuming life in Arlington, Texas, where the 69-year-old Indian immigrant works a graveyard shift preparing passenger meals for an airline catering company.

From Salon ● Sep. 26, 2026

Along with the toll of human lives, entire towns and villages had been wiped off the map, to be remembered, if at all, by means of small stone monuments that resemble graveyard headstones.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

Until now, however, scientists have lacked a reliable way to determine how the remains of extinct megafauna and other animals accumulated, survived, and changed inside these submerged graveyards.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026

The subtropical southern Japanese region boasts some of the world's most biodiverse hubs of normally multicoloured coral, but a 2024 marine heatwave created "graveyards" of ghostly pale or sickly brown organisms.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

Wall Street’s graveyards are filled with analysts who have insisted that they would.

From MarketWatch ● May 6, 2026

Add in recent cemetery thefts in Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Washington: Across the nation, American graveyards are being pilfered.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026

Mudgett foresaw no difficulty in acquiring the cadavers, although in fact a national shortage of corpses for medical education had by then driven doctors to raid graveyards for the freshly dead.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

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Related Words

• burial ground
• cemetery

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