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
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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:
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
Then on Thursday, Khamenei will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, the mausoleum of Shia Islam's eighth imam and Iran's most important pilgrimage site, in Mashhad.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
New Orleans resembles a giant mausoleum: “The past is so much a part of the present here and it’s unhealthy,” says a concerned friend.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
Beefed-up security at the mausoleum prevented foreigners from entering, AFP journalists saw.
From Barron's ● Apr. 8, 2026
I didn’t want to get anywhere close to that horrible black mausoleum, but I knew what I had to do.
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
On the shadowy Past, over the deserted battle-fields, the burial-mounds, the mausolea, the temples, the altars, and the habitations of perished nations, new rays of light are cast.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 07, May, 1858 by Various
This is particularly true of the tomb mosques, situated in the mausolea on the east side of the city, and known as the Tombs of the Khalifs.
From Travels in the Far East by Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
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
Teddi Mellencamp said that’s when she started making demands, like what would go on her tombstone — if tombstones even exist in mausoleums.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2025
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
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.
