hearse
Americannoun
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hearses
plural
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a vehicle for conveying a dead person to the place of burial.
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a triangular frame for holding candles, used at the service of Tenebrae in Holy Week.
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a canopy erected over a tomb.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hearse
1250–1300; Middle English herse < Middle French herce a harrow < Latin hirpicem, accusative of hirpex
Explanation
A hearse is a long black car with a very specific purpose: carrying a coffin to a church or cemetery. Some vehicles have very specific functions, and the hearse is one of them. It's only use is for carrying coffins, usually to or from a church or cemetery. As with most things surrounding funerals, a hearse is black. It's also long, so it can fit the coffin. Before cars were invented, hearses were pulled by horses. Of all the vehicles in the world, the hearse is probably the most depressing.
Vocabulary lists containing hearse
Number the Stars
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One of Us Is Lying
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145th Street
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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:
As the old saying goes, the hearse doesn’t come with a trailer hitch.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 29, 2026
A hearse driver lost his argument that the corpse in back was a passenger.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 26, 2026
At a different point we can see a body bag at the back of a hearse and a man nearby is heard telling a female official that it is his sister.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2026
Paramedics and police officers stood at attention as the hearse passed.
From Barron's ● Jan. 9, 2026
They left the Ministry in a black car resembling a hearse with official license plates.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
As well as ambulances, hearses were also seen along the route, where rescuers said entire villages had been washed away by floodwaters.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
As part of the outpouring of solidarity from Venezuelans, many private funeral homes have offered free hearses to transport the dead, and free cremations.
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
The somber convoys of hearses and relatives crossed much of the battered Acapulco en route to the cemetery, passing ransacked stores, streets strewn with debris and soldiers cutting away fallen trees.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 30, 2023
On Thursday, two hearses carrying the bodies of Woodard and Brown crossed the international bridge to Brownsville, where the remains were handed over to U.S. authorities.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 9, 2023
Judge William Lewis saw house after house in his neighborhood abandoned, saw the streets empty, saw the hearses constantly passing his home, and fled.
From "An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793" by Jim Murphy
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.
