sepulchre
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsɛpəlkə/
ipa: /ˈsɛpəlkɚ/
ipa: /ˈsiːpəlkəɹ/
Forms: form: sepulchres
form: sepulcher
Etymology: From Middle English sepulchre, sepulcre, sepulker, from late Old English sepulcer, Old French sepulchre, sepulcre, and their etymon Latin sepulchrum, sepulcrum (“grave, burial place”).
Senses: examples: text: Near-synonym: crypt
text: By Mahomet, my Kinſmans ſepulcher,
And by the holy Alcaron I ſweare, […]
ref: c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
text: He is knight dubb'd with vnhatche'd Rapier, and on carpet conſideration, but he is a diuell in priuate brall, soules and bodies hath he diuorc'd three, and his incenſement at this moment is ſo implacable, that ſatisfaction can be none, but by pangs of death and ſepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.
ref: c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 269:
text: Woe vnto you Scribes and Phariſees, hypocrites, for yee are like vnto whited ſepulchꝛes, which indeed appeare beautifull outward, but are within full of dead mens bones, and of all vncleanneſſe.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 23:27, signature C3, verso, column 2:
text: [I]n the reign of Henry the Second, a body happening, by chance, to be dug up near Glastonbury Abbey, without any symptoms of putrefaction or decay, the Welch, the descendants of the Ancient Britons, tenacious of the dignity and reputation of that illustrious hero [King Arthur], vainly supposed it could be no other than the body of their justly-boasted Pen-Dragon; and that he had been immured in that sepulchre by the spells of some powerful and implacable inchanter.
ref: 1810, J[ohn] Stagg, “Arthur’s Cave. A Legendary Tale.”, in The Minstrel of the North: Or, Cumbrian Legends. […], London: Printed by Hamblin and Seyfang, […], for the author, and sold by J. Blacklock, […], →OCLC, page 105:
text: Nor was it the human form alone which we had placed in this eternal sepulchre, whose obsequies we now celebrated.
ref: 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter VIII, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 253:
text: And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
ref: 1849, Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee":
text: The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk.
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Funeral”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, pages 343–344:
text: Plato, too, it is well known, considered the body as the sepulchre of the soul, and in the Cratylus concurs with the doctrine of Orpheus, that the soul is punished through its union with body.
ref: 1891, Thomas Taylor, The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, Section 1:
text: The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they bend. First saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage.
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 14: Oxen of the Sun]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 376:
text: I parked Bertha in a convenient cab rank and raced into the smoked glass sepulchre that is Hanover airport.
ref: 1987, Christina Hardyment, “Picking up Gold and Silver”, in Heidi’s Alp: One Family’s Search for Storybook Europe, Book Club edition, New York, N.Y.: The Atlantic Monthly Press, →OCLC, page 99:
synonyms: tomb
vault
coordinate_terms: grave
glosses: A burial chamber.
topics: Christianity
glosses: A recess in some early churches in which the reserved sacrament, etc. was kept from Good Friday till Easter.
Derived terms: Holy Sepulchre
right of sepulchre
whited sepulchre
Related terms: sepulchral
sepulture
catacomb
cemetery