graveyard

[greyv-yahrd]

noun

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.

graveyard

/ ˈɡreɪvˌjɑːd /

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of graveyard¹

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

Example Sentences

A long stretch of road headed west into Westmoreland Parish winds through a graveyard of trees – stacks of branches and limbs, cracked and twisted, blanketing the landscape for miles.

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For years, weight loss was a graveyard for drug development and shunned by large drugmakers.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

“People are sort of whistling past the graveyard of some real risks out there for the economy,” said Dean Smith, chief strategist at FolioBeyond.

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He exhumed corpses from graveyards in Wisconsin in the 1950s and admitted to killing at least two women whose bodies he then mutilated.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The graveyard shift will become the domain of retail investors and specialized firms.

Read more on Barron's

Related Words

• burial ground 
• cemetery