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cemetery Definition

cem·etery (semə ter′ē)

noun pl. -·ter′·ies

a place for the burial of the dead; graveyard

Etymology: LL(Ec) coemeterium < Gr koimētērion, sleeping place (in LGr(Ec), cemetery) < koiman, to put to sleep; akin to keimai, to lie down: see home

cemetery Synonyms

cemetery

n.

burial ground, graveyard, memorial park, funerary grounds, churchyard, necropolis, potter's field, catacomb, city of the dead, tomb, ossuary, vault, crypt, charnel house, sepulcher, mortuary, last resting place, God's acre, Golgotha, eternal home, boneyard*; see also grave 1.

cemetery Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • desecrate: It is no good being associated by such an action with gas chambers and desecrated cemeteries.
  • excavate: She tested tissue from 134 naturally preserved bodies from an excavated cemetery in the Sudan, once part of the Egyptian empire.
  • overgrow: Cities are dwarfed by skies, cemeteries overgrown, castles invariably ruined.
  • situate: Probably the most beautifully situated cemetery in the world.

Preposition: in

  • vicinity: With inhumation universal by the fourth century there ought to be inhumation cemeteries in the vicinity of Segontium, tho none are known.

Adjective modifier

  • Anglo-Saxon: Based on remains found in a grave at Buckland Anglo-Saxon cemetery.
  • communal: The communal cemetery over the road had a fascinating plaque on the wall.
  • municipal: Most local history archives include cemetery records for municipal cemeteries, many of which were built in the mid to late 1850's.
  • romano-british: This has never been observed in a Romano-British cemetery before, and only very rarely elsewhere in the empire.
  • Anglian: An Anglian cemetery dating from 500AD was found near here containing a royal grave.

Modifies a noun

  • chapel: You can hold the funeral service in a local church or in a cemetery chapel.
  • gate: Alternatively, walk to Blacknor along the track serving the old Fort, starting by the cemetery gates.
  • :-: Among those buried in this cemetery:- DYE, Private HARRY.

Noun used with modifier

  • barrow: Square barrow cemeteries come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
  • cremation: Expectations of what a cremation cemetery could involve had changed.
  • inhumation: With inhumation universal by the fourth century there ought to be inhumation cemeteries in the vicinity of Segontium, tho none are known.
  • commonwealth: And finally, as dusk fell, to Tyne Cot, the biggest Commonwealth cemetery in the World.
  • battlefield: The latter is possibly the closest of all German 1914-18 battlefield cemeteries to Paris.
  • Anglo-Saxon: Sherlock, SJ & Welch, MG 1992 An Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Norton, Cleveland.
cemetery Quotes

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.

—Hawthorne, Nathaniel

The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

Science is a cemetery of dead ideas.

—Unamuno, Miguel de

Give me your arm, old toad; Help me down Cemetery Road.

—Larkin, Philip Arthur

Father declared he was going to buya new plot in the cemetery, a plot all for himself.'And I'll buy one on a corner,' he added triumphantly,'where I can get out.'

—Day, Clarence Shepard

   Dans les villes actuelles, le seul lieu,öhe¤  las encore vers la pe¤  riphe¤  rieöo  u' un the¤  a"  tre pourrait e"  tre construit, c'est le cimetie'  re. In today's cities, the only placeöunfortunately on the outskirtsöto construct a theatre is a cemetery.

—Genet,Jean

Running a cemetery isjust like being President: you got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.

—Anonymous

Browse dictionary entries near cemetery

  1. cementum
  2. cementite
  3. cementation
  4. cement
  5. cembalo
  6. Celtic Sea
  7. Celtic cross
  8. Celtic
  9. celt
  10. Celsius
  1. cen
  2. cenacle
  3. -cene
  4. cenesthesia
  5. Cenis
  6. ceno-
  7. cenobite
  8. cenogenesis
  9. cenospecies
  10. cenotaph