Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to a burial vault or a receptacle for sacred relics.
- adjective Suggestive of the grave; funereal.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to a sepulcher or tomb; connected with burial or the grave; erected on a grave or to the memory of the dead: as, a sepulchral stone or statue.
- Suggestive of a sepulcher or tomb.
- Gloomy; funereal; solemn.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to burial, to the grave, or to monuments erected to the memory of the dead
- adjective Unnaturally low and grave; hollow in tone; -- said of sound, especially of the voice.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Suggestive of a
grave - adjective Hollow and deep.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to a sepulchre
- adjective gruesomely indicative of death or the dead
- adjective suited to or suggestive of a grave or burial
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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'I am the census-taker Time,' I boomed in sepulchral tones.
Local Color 2010
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'She laid the still white form beside those that had gone before,' quoth Bobby, in sepulchral tone.
The Girls of Central High on the Stage: or, The Play That Took the Prize 1914
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'I am the census-taker Time,' I boomed in sepulchral tones.
Local Colour 1906
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"Kiss my fluffy face!" said the Doctor in sepulchral tones.
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Many artists exercised their imagination in both fields; in some specific fields such as sepulchral iconog - raphy, cooperation between religious and humanistic symbolism was common.
ICONOGRAPHY JAN BIA��OSTOCKI 1968
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The little girl's eyes were shining; the very thought of that other ghost's "sepulchral" tones gave her a thrill down her back and lifted her out of herself.
An Australian Lassie Lilian Turner
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Feeling dizzy, she sank down on the edge of the berth, keeping away from his outstretched body, and pulling the curtains close, so that he and she were shut into a kind of sepulchral twilight.
The Greater Inclination Edith Wharton 1899
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You understand, my lord, I said this in hollow tones -- in what I may almost term a sepulchral voice. "
A Book About Lawyers John Cordy Jeaffreson 1866
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Of greatest concern to me was a certain unmistakable foetor—that same dusty, sepulchral stench from my dream!
Abomination at the Shilkie Andrew Edwards 2011
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Moans of a sepulchral timbre drifted out of the dark, and we advanced into the pitchy recess.
Perquampi Andrew Edwards 2011
pinckney2007 commented on the word sepulchral
"Some thought the vessel could not live through the night, and it seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the wild tempest and see the peril that threatened than to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps, and imagine the horrors that were abroad on the ocean." IO, in Ch. 7, "Gibraltor."
December 7, 2008
ekerilaz commented on the word sepulchral
Next, listen to the "St. Anne" fugue by Bach (BWV 552). It's a triple fugue, where the first strain is God, the second is Jesus, and the third is the Holy Spirit. The second strain represents Jesus' incarnation on earth and is for manuals alone, without the sepulchral pedal tones. For a great article on it, see http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-08-014-v which discusses the connection between the music and the views of Arius and St. Athanasius.
Facebook posting by Evan Klein at 11:18pm June 2
June 5, 2009
RevBrently commented on the word sepulchral
From p. 11 of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "A Time to Keep Silence":
The recitation had now changed from Latin to French, delivered in the same sepulchral, and, to me, largely unintelligible, monotone.
January 21, 2014