sepulcher

American  

[sep-uhl-ker] / ˈsɛp əl kər /

especially British, sepulchre

noun

1. a tomb, grave, or burial place.

   Synonyms:

   crypt, mausoleum, vault

2. Also called Easter sepulcher.  Ecclesiastical.

   1. a cavity in a mensa for containing relics of martyrs.

   2. a structure or a recess in some old churches in which the Eucharist was deposited with due ceremonies on Good Friday and taken out at Easter in commemoration of Christ's entombment and Resurrection.

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verb (used with object)

1. to place in a sepulcher; bury.

Other Word Forms

• unsepulcher
  verb (used with object)

Etymology

Origin of sepulcher

First recorded in 1150–1200; Middle English sepulcre, from Old French, from Latin sepulcrum, equivalent to sepul- (variant stem of sepelīre “to bury”) + -crum noun suffix of place

Explanation

A sepulcher is a burial vault or tomb, like the one that is featured prominently in the final scenes of Romeo and Juliet. (Of course, for those who haven’t read the play yet, we’re not suggesting that anyone dies, necessarily.) Sepulchers often appear in literature, probably because they instantly convey sadness, spookiness, and all sorts of other unpleasant emotions. For example, Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee” tells the story of the narrator's true love, who now lies “[i]n the sepulcher there by the sea.” When reading "Annabel Lee," Romeo and Juliet, and other similarly depressing works aloud, note that sepulcher is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable.

Example Sentences

The remnants of this Bronze Age sepulcher, nicknamed the Spanish Stonehenge, are now fully exposed for only the fifth time since the area was deliberately flooded in 1963 as part of a rural development project.

From New York Times • Sep. 9, 2022

The three artists who broke into an abandoned South Seattle warehouse, turning it into a yawning sepulcher with eerie murals and sculpture partly based on monuments from a 19th-century Alaska Native cemetery.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 26, 2019

I therefore wished to make certain that no fleck of uncertainty besmirched the white sepulcher of her legitimacy.

From Washington Post • Apr. 13, 2018

Right to sepulcher lawsuits, which are rare, typically are filed against institutions such as hospitals that handle bodies.

From Reuters • Dec. 1, 2015

Sunday morning, in a Vermont town, my last day in New England, I shaved, dressed in a suit, polished my shoes, whited my sepulcher, and looked for a church to attend.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck