tumulus
Americannoun
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Archaeology. an artificial mound, especially over a grave; barrow.
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Geology. a domelike swelling or mound formed in congealed lava.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tumulus
1680–90; < Latin: mound, swelling, equivalent to tum ( ēre ) to swell + -ulus -ule
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:
Both the capstone and the tumulus were dismantled in 1925 during an excavation led by Hugo Obermaier, a Spanish-German anthropologist and prehistorian.
From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2022
The stones, or menhirs — some as tall as six feet — buttressed a massive capstone set in a tumulus, or a mound of earth and pebbles.
From New York Times ● Sep. 9, 2022
Bassett said afterward that the site includes an apron of riprap around the men’s tumulus, which is in a ravine.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 27, 2015
Bassett said he was sitting on a pile of boulders when he realized that the rocks were the top layer of a tumulus, an archaeological term for a burial chamber or sepulcher.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 27, 2015
“I didn’t know there was a tumulus in it.”
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Sardis' landscape is vulnerable to natural erosion, while many tumuli have already been damaged by farming.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 25, 2026
With its origins in pre-Buddhist burial mounds or sacred tumuli, it retains a cosmogonic power.
From New York Times ● May 11, 2020
"In the smoky firelight the two old men nodded off like a pair of ancient kings passing the aeons in their tumuli."
From The Guardian ● Jun. 11, 2010
Like miniature tumuli, they mark the spots where the bodies of the Moas returned to dust.
From The Adventures of a Grain of Dust by Hawksworth, Hallam
The use of the blowpipe has been inferred from metalline remains discovered in sepulchral tumuli of the Mississippi valley.
From The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 3, October, 1851 by Various
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.
