potter's field

American  

noun

(sometimes initial capital letters)

1. a piece of ground reserved as a burial place for strangers and the friendless poor. Matthew 27:7.

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potter's field British  

noun

1. a cemetery where the poor or unidentified are buried at the public expense

2. New Testament the land bought by the Sanhedrin with the money paid for the betrayal of Jesus (which Judas had returned to them) to be used as a burial place for strangers and the friendless poor (Acts 1:19; Matthew 27:7)

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Etymology

Origin of potter's field

First recorded in 1520–30

Example Sentences

Could we really have lived through a situation in which, in that city alone, hospitals had to move bodies by forklift into makeshift truck morgues, in which bodies were stored in funeral home viewing rooms and chapels, in which four crematoria worked around the clock and bodies were buried in the same potter's field that has taken in the victims of past yellow fever, tuberculosis, HIV and influenza victims?

From Salon

Army Corps of Engineers, before dredging and straightening the river, disinterred this Potter’s Field.

From Seattle Times

The family lived down the street from the potter’s field where the boy was first buried, and placed flowers there on holidays.

From Seattle Times

“We played softball next to the potter’s field where he was buried and we would visit him on the holidays, with flowers and prayers,” she said.

From Seattle Times

After an autopsy, Joseph was buried for the first time at a potter’s field in the city.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• garden
• graveyard
• mortuary
• tomb