headstone
Americannoun
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headstones
plural
noun
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a memorial stone at the head of a grave
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architect another name for keystone
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of headstone
Explanation
A headstone is a grave marker, usually inscribed with the dead person's name. You might visit your grandfather's grave each year, leaving flowers beside his headstone. Another name for a headstone is a tombstone or a gravestone. True to its name, a headstone is often made out of a large piece of stone, frequently slate, granite, or marble. The meaning of headstone was originally "cornerstone," or the stone at the corner of the base of a building, but by the 1700s it came to mean "stone at the head of a grave."
Vocabulary lists containing headstone
Ghost Boys
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The Young Man and the Sea
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In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse
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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:
Second, a granite headstone, measuring six feet by three feet, will be erected.
From Salon ● Jun. 1, 2026
A few pens have been left on the headstone, which has been replaced at least once; generations of fans have attempted to obliterate “Hughes.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 14, 2026
Other notable artifacts connected to St. Eustatius are a headstone from its Jewish cemetery, commemorating a merchant’s wife, and a Hanukkah lamp from Amsterdam that was eventually carried to St. Thomas by Jewish exiles.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
Not included: “A headstone or any other permanent memorial,” the site adds.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 18, 2025
The actual headstone was covered in green and yellow lichen, and so worn and faded as to almost be undecipherable, but the rubbing was clear.
From "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman
The “expat graveyard” is filled with headstones of people who boldly declared, “We love it here. We’re never leaving.”
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 24, 2026
She said she was still mourning the loss of her son when more than a dozen headstones were stolen.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2026
Beneath moss-covered cinder blocks, dilapidated stone markers, and a handful of headstones, more than 200 children who died in state custody between the 1870s and 1930s are buried.
From Slate ● Mar. 30, 2026
Embalming, headstones, ornaments, and plastic flowers are not allowed.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2024
Fireflies flickered among the headstones in the leaf-green failing light.
From "The Serpent King" by Jeff Zentner
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.
