cemetery

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈsɛm.ɪˌtɹi/, /ˈsɛm.əˌtɹi/ (UK); /ˈsɛm.ɪˌtɛɹ.i/, /ˈsɛm.əˌtɛɹ.i/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

inherited from Middle English cimiterie,^[2][3][1] borrowed from Old French cimitiere (“graveyard”),^[2][4][3][1] from Medieval Latin cimitērium,^[2][1] from Late Latin coemētērium,^{[2][5][6][4][3]} from Ancient Greek κοιμητήριον (koimētḗrion, “sleeping place, dormitory”),^{[2][5][6][4][3][1]} from koimân “to put to sleep”,^{[2][5][6][4][3]} related to keîsthai “to lie down”.^[4][5][3] The root is Proto-Indo-European *kei- “to lie”, which also formed words for “bed, couch”.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A burial ground, in the late 14th century.^[3][6] The OED's first quotation (1387) refers to the underground cemeteries of Rome, the catacombs.^[7] Barnhart finds simeterigarth “cemetery yard” in 1377 and cymytory about 1425.^[4]

Semantic evolution

A cemetery is literally a dormitory, a place to sleep.^[3][6] The Greek word had long been used of the sleep of death, but it was early Christian writers who first applied it to a burial ground.^[3][4] In English it was used for a churchyard in the 15th century,^[7] but by the 19th it typically meant a large public burial ground not attached to a church.^[3][7] Spellings with cem-, after the Latin, appear from the late 15th century.^[3] Old English words for a burial ground included līcburg and līctūn, from līc “corpse”.^[3][1]

Timeline

• 1377 – simeterigarth.^[4]
• 1387 – the Roman catacombs.^[7]
• 1485 – “churchyard”.^[7]
• late 15th century – spellings with cem-.^[3]
• 1613 – “burial ground” in general.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A place where the dead are buried; a graveyard, especially one not attached to a church.

Word family

• cemeterial

Related words

• graveyard
• churchyard
• lich
• lychgate
• catacomb

References

1. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press