headstone
Americannoun
noun
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a memorial stone at the head of a grave
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architect another name for keystone
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.
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
The words are carved into a headstone marking the grave of a young man, whose remains were found on a Cornish clifftop more than 40 years ago.
From BBC • Apr. 29, 2026
Not included: “A headstone or any other permanent memorial,” the site adds.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 18, 2025
Soon after that, a flower shop, headstone engraver, and funeral parlor offered to sponsor me in national tournaments.
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
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.
