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 a funeral; funereal
  • noun a place where dead bodies are stored prior to burial or cremation
  • 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

[Middle English mortuarie, gift to a parish priest from the estate of the deceased, funeral service, from Anglo-Norman, from Latin mortuārium, receptacle for dead things, neuter of mortuārius, of the dead, from mortuus, dead, past participle of morī, to die; see mer- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman mortuarie ("gift to a parish priest from a deceased parishioner"), from Medieval Latin mortuārium ("receptacle for the dead; mortuary"), neuter form of mortuārius ("of or pertaining to the dead"), from Latin mortuus, perfect passive participle of morior ("I die").

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