sepulchre
Americannoun
noun
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a burial vault, tomb, or grave
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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
Explanation
There are many possible resting places for your body once you die, and a sepulcher is the best option if you want a fancy room made entirely from stone. Think it over, because you can only choose once. Crypts, mausoleums, sarcophagi, sepulchers: each one is a place to bury someone, with slight variations. A sepulcher (or if you’re British you’ll spell it sepulchre) is basically a stone room with a stone coffin where your body lies. The word comes from the Latin sepulcrum, which means “burial place,” for obvious reasons. Pronouncing sepulcher could trick you, because the ch actually sounds like a k: "SEP-ul-ker."
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:
In some accounts he is buried with his wife and two children next to the tomb of Jesus — the ultimate martyr’s sepulchre.
From Time ● Mar. 30, 2016
It depicts a stern risen Christ on the edge of a sepulchre; the city's name means "holy sepulchre" in Italian.
From Reuters ● Nov. 16, 2014
Maurice, meanwhile, is terrified of mouldering in respectable suburbia, dragging some poor virgin into the sepulchre with him.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 5, 2013
Mary Todd Lincoln understandably called the place "that whited sepulchre."
From Time Magazine Archive
Singing and bearing candles, the nuns leave the choir and follow the priest to the sepulchre.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
The present orthography has introduced an awkward mode of writing the derivatives, for example, centred, sceptred, sepulchred; whereas Milton and Pope wrote these words as regular derivatives of center, scepter, sepulcher, thus, 'Sceptered king.'
From Noah Webster American Men of Letters by Scudder, Horace E.
It is the woman sepulchred in a small village who finds herself most severely handicapped.
From Journalism for Women A Practical Guide by Bennett, Arnold
When my clay idol fell I could not gather back the wasted trust and affection, and so, all—all is sepulchred in one deep grave.
From Infelice by Evans, Augusta J. (Augusta Jane)
My father lives sepulchred ere his time, Here in Eudocia's tomb; let me conduct thee.
From The Grecian Daughter by Murphy, Arthur
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place, That all the faults which in thy reign are made May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!
From The Rape of Lucrece by Shakespeare, William
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.
