sepulchre
Americannoun
noun
-
a burial vault, tomb, or grave
-
Also called: Easter sepulchre. a separate alcove in some medieval churches in which the Eucharistic elements were kept from Good Friday until the Easter ceremonies
verb
Etymology
Origin of sepulchre
C12: from Old French sépulcre, from Latin sepulcrum, from sepelīre to bury
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.
Augustine Duganne, a New York legislator, soldier and poet, asked in an 1863 poem: “For what hath all this Southland been / But one white sepulchre of sin / So fair without — so foul within?”
From Los Angeles Times
In the back of the room was a marble fireplace, big as a sepulchre, and a globed gasolier—dripping with prisms and strings of crystal beading—sparkled in the dim.
From Literature
![]()
The house was a sepulchre, our fear and suffering lay buried in the ruins.
From Literature
![]()
En route, we passed a cemetery with a series of gravestones and sepulchres painted ornately with American flags, an indication that the deceased had died as immigrants in the U.S.
From The New Yorker
With the crackling warmth of the fire and the smell of purifying incense the room seemed less of a sepulchre.
From Literature
![]()
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.