mausoleum
Americannoun
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mausoleums,
plural
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mausolea
plural
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a stately and magnificent tomb.
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a burial place for the bodies or remains of many individuals, often of a single family, usually in the form of a small building.
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a large, gloomy, depressing building, room, or the like.
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(initial capital letter) the tomb erected at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in 350? b.c.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of mausoleum
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin < Greek Mausoleîon the tomb of Mausolus, king of Caria
Explanation
A mausoleum is a building that contains a tomb or tombs. The Taj Mahal, built by Shah Jahan as a monument to his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, is the world's most famous mausoleum. Mausoleion, the Greek source of the Latinized mausoleum, was the name given to the tomb of the King Mausolus, a Persian ruler who died in 353 B.C.E. This vast elaborate structure was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Other notable mausoleums or mausolea include the mausoleum of China's First Qin Emperor –- the site of the famous Terra Cotta Army — and the tombs of Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln.
Vocabulary lists containing mausoleum
You Name It: Eponyms
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100 Great Words from "Fahrenheit 451" -- Part I Vocabulary
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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:
A room on the Taj Mahal—Shah Jahan’s mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and the Mughals’ most famous landmark—feels a little underwhelming: Nothing could replace being there.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026
And Stalin himself, whose body was initially interred in the same mausoleum that housed the embalmed Vladimir Lenin, was subjected to criticism for some of his evil deeds.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Huge crowds filled the city of Najaf for a procession that ended at the mausoleum of Imam Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law and first Shia Imam.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
The KMT leader also travelled to the eastern city of Nanjing, where she visited the mausoleum of revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, one of the few Chinese historical figures revered in both Beijing and Taipei.
From Barron's ● Apr. 10, 2026
It reminded me of an oversized mausoleum, with walls fifty feet high.
From "The Battle of the Labyrinth" by Rick Riordan
“What does it mean to have some lone surviving mausolea in the middle of a massive jumble of roads and traffic?”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 10, 2023
"It looks like a large number of villa buildings, along with a probable bath house and perhaps even mausolea and a chapel," said Dr Gater.
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2022
The National Museum of African American History and Culture now stands as a glittering golden crown on the Mall, in Washington DC, a brilliant foil to the neighbouring rows of white stone mausolea.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 28, 2017
The Indian mounds, those gigantic mausolea of unhistoried nations, will ever present a subject of absorbing interest to the reflecting mind.
From The South-West By a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 2 by Jonathon Holt Ingraham
In addition to this fine building there are at Roccella the ruins of two smaller late Roman churches, mausolea, and endless foundations of buildings which must have formed very extensive suburbs.
From The Letters of Cassiodorus Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator by Thomas Hodgkin
A Cuban tour guide at Havana’s historic Colón Cemetery, a popular visitor draw because of its elaborate monuments and mausoleums, said she lost her job this spring as tourism collapsed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
Conservative governor Tarcisio de Freitas on Tuesday signed the so-called Bob Coveiro law that will allow pets to be buried in family graves or mausoleums across Sao Paulo state.
From Barron's ● Feb. 10, 2026
Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi admitted to leading fighters who destroyed historic mausoleums at the world heritage site in Mali in 2012.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2024
Since then, volunteers—also known as “gravers”—have stalwartly photographed and recorded tombstones, mausoleums, crosses, statues, and all other manner of graves for posterity.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2024
The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
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.
