Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A receptacle for the dead used by the Parsees, consisting of a low round tower built of large stones, on the grated top of which the bodies are exposed till, being stripped of their flesh by carnivorous birds, their bones drop through the grating into the pit of the tower.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The preferred disposal method for Zoroastrians is by exposure to sunlight and birds of prey, but this method is only permitted in India, through the use of the dokhma.

    Ashes to ashes to gunpowder | Letter Never Sent 2005

  • After all, there is something sublime in that sepulture of the Parsees, who erect near every village a dokhma, or Tower of Silence, upon whose summit they may bury their dead in air.

    Oldport Days 1873

  • a dokhma, or Tower of Silence, upon whose summit they may bury their dead in air.

    Oldport Days Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1867

Comments

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  • Dokhma is also a Brazilian Death/Black Metal band. www.dokhma.com

    August 14, 2014