| / English Dictionary |
FUNERAL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated
Example:
hundreds of people attended his funeral
Synonyms:
funeral; obsequy
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("funeral" is a kind of...):
ceremonial; ceremonial occasion; ceremony; observance (a formal event performed on a special occasion)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "funeral"):
burial; entombment; inhumation; interment; sepulture (the ritual placing of a corpse in a grave)
sky burial (a traditional Tibetan funeral ritual in which the corpse is exposed to the open air to be eaten by sacred vultures)
Derivation:
funerary (of or for or relating to a funeral)
funereal (suited to or suggestive of a grave or burial)
Context examples:
I gave my order as soberly as I could, and slamming down the door, with an "Aye, aye, mum," the man made his horse walk, as if going to a funeral.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Catherine had read too much not to be perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced, and a supposititious funeral carried on.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
The virus was brought into Sierra Leone by 14 people who had been in nearby Guinea to attend the funeral of a traditional healer who had treated Ebola patients.
(Genetics of the 2014 Ebola Outbreak, NIH)
A published record of a person's death that usually includes a brief biography and details of the funeral arrangements.
(Obituary, NCI Thesaurus)
Archaeologists from the University of Granada have carried out excavations in the Biniadris Cave located on the Balearic Island of Menorca, uncovering enigmatic funeral rituals.
(Hair was dyed for first time as part of funeral rituals, University of Granada)
Our natural distress, the visits of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, and all the work of the inn to be carried on in the meanwhile kept me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of the captain, far less to be afraid of him.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
These differences in the isotopic values point to the cultural changes that took place throughout this prolonged period during which the sites were used for funeral purposes, but yet they also show that the eating habits were quite consistent, despite the individuals having been buried in different epochs and cultural phases.
(Analysis of the Palaeolithic diet finds that, in the prehistoric age, for thousands of years there were no social divisions in food consumption, University of Granada)
The night after the funeral, at which he had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of his business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy candle, drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by the hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Mr. Churchill was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a visit the last ten years.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
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