Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A place, especially a funeral home, where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation.
- adjective Of or relating to burial practices.
- adjective Relating to or characteristic of death.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to the burial of the dead.
- noun In law, a sort of ecclesiastical heriot, a customary gift claimed by and due to the minister of a parish on the death of a parishioner.
- noun A burial-place.
- noun A place for the temporary reception of the dead; a dead-house.
- noun A memorial of the death of some beloved or revered person; especially, in the seventeenth century, a sword bearing some emblem of the wearer's devotion to the memory of Charles I. and the cause of royalty.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A sort of ecclesiastical heriot, a customary gift claimed by, and due to, the minister of a parish on the death of a parishioner. It seems to have been originally a voluntary bequest or donation, intended to make amends for any failure in the payment of tithes of which the deceased had been guilty.
- noun A burial place; a place for the dead.
- noun A place for the reception of the dead before burial; a deadhouse; a morgue.
- noun A
funeral home . - adjective Of or pertaining to the dead.
- adjective an urn for holding the ashes of a dead person after cremation.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective of, or relating to
death or afuneral ;funereal - noun a place where
dead bodies are stored prior toburial orcremation - noun a
morgue
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to or characteristic of death
- adjective of or relating to a funeral
- noun a building (or room) where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The night she died, I called the mortuary and two greasy young men in black suits came with a gurney.
The Mother Garden Robin Romm 2007
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The night she died, I called the mortuary and two greasy young men in black suits came with a gurney.
The Mother Garden Robin Romm 2007
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Reports from Iraq this June showed that Baghdad’s main mortuary had already received the bodies of more than 6,000 people since that start of 2006, most killed violently and probably due to sectarian killings, which many would see as terrorism.
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The southern Maryland newspaper that first reported Billy's death cryptically noted that one must call the mortuary for funeral arrangements.
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They do have to get it signed over to a mortuary, that is between the hours of 6: 00 and 12: 00 midnight local time.
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"He called the mortuary crew as soon as I got my pictures and rolled a set of prints."
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"He called the mortuary crew as soon as I got my pictures and rolled a set of prints."
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The mortuary was a long shed with a big roll-up door standing open.
Killing Floor Child, Lee 1997
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The mortuary was a long shed with a big roll-up door standing open.
Killing Floor Child, Lee 1997
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The mortuary is a catchment for the dead from settlements on the strife-torn East Rand near Johannesburg, including the twin townships of Tokoza and Katlehong which have become the focus of violence sweeping the country.
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