Dictionary

inurn en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Italic *n̥- Latin in-bor. Middle English in- English in- English urn English inurn From in- + urn.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To place (the remains of a person who has died) in an urn or other container.
   • […] the Sepulcher Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn’d Hath op’d his ponderous and Marble iawes, To cast thee vp againe c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene 3 [4]]:
   • […] it is necessary that he should pass through a period of temporary death, for which state he prepares in the following manner, building to himself a secure and convenient tomb, wherein he lies decently inurned till the appointed moment when he is to arise from his inactive state, and become the inhabitant of another element. 1760, Charlotte Lennox, “The Natural History of the Formica-Leo, or Lion-Pismire”, in The Lady’s Museum, volume 1, London: J. Newbery, page 314:
   • Each one [crematory] is different, and there is a wide range in the quality of the work they do and the pains they take in combusting and inurning human remains. 1994, William R. Maples, Michael Browning, chapter 10, in Dead Men Do Tell Tales, New York: Doubleday, page 136:
   • Nelson was once Britannia’s god of war, And still should be so, but the tide is turn’d; There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar, ’Tis with our hero quietly inurn’d; 1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: […] Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, canto I, stanza 4, page 4:
2. (transitive) To hold or contain (the remains of a person who has died).
   • Though you exist still, a mere form inurning The ashes of dead fires of thought and yearning, 1884, James Thomson, “The Poet and His Muse”, in A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, page 59:
   • […] as the plough turns Some warlike relic from the sod, Whose mould the battle-ranks inurns, 1838, George Hill, “The Battle of San Jacinto”, in The Ruins of Athens; Titania’s Banquet, A Mask; and Other Poems, Boston: Otis, Broaders, page 79:
   • Now there are no other remains of its [Hadrian’s mausoleum’s] grandeur than a ball of bronze in the Vatican, which crowned its cupola, and was supposed to inurn the ashes of its Imperial founder. 1792, Thomas Watkins, Travels through Swisserland, Italy, Sicily, the Greek Islands, to Constantinople, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 18, p. 350:
   • 1826, Caleb Cushing, Eulogy given on 15 July, 1826, in A Selection of Eulogies, Pronounced in the Several States, in Honor of […] John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Hartford: D.F. Robinson, p. 21, Over the insensible marble, which inurns their ashes, a nation bows prostrate in the lowly attitude of mourning,

Forms

Deriveds

inurnment

Synonyms

lay to rest · bury · inhume · inter · entomb · ensepulchre