exhumer

English

Etymology

exhume +‎ -er

Noun

exhumer (plural exhumers)

1. One who exhumes.
   • 1835, William Light, The Last Voyage, p. 346:

     […] he had also satisfied his mind that it had been done consistently with the rights of man, although neither Paine, nor the exhumer of his bones had ever ventured into his country, to instil into the ductile minds of the natives the principles of their philosophy.

   • 1848, William Stirling Maxwell, Annals of the Artists of Spain, p. 992:

     Lucia del Monte, in that city he painted a picture representing Pope St. Pasquale, a great church-builder and exhumer of holy corpses.

   • 1910, Polynesian Society (N.Z.), Memoirs of the Polynesian Society, p. 72:

     As each skull was taken out, the exhumer held it up to the view of the onlookers, when a wailing cry would be heard as they greeted the remains of their dead relative.

   • 1996, Fritz Spiegl, Fritz Spiegl's Sick Notes, p. 137:

     Resurrectionist: […] since about 1776, an exhumer and stealer of corpses which were later (or perhaps better, sooner) sold to anatomists for dissection and research.

   • 2005, J. Patrick Greene, Medieval Monasteries, p. 56:

     In the medieval period monks were enthusiastic exhumers of the mortal remains of the holiest of individuals.

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French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin exhumō, from Latin ex- + humō (“to bury”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛɡ.zy.me/

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

exhumer

1. to exhume

   Coordinate term: inhumer

Conjugation

Conjugation of exhumer (see also Appendix:French verbs)

infinitive	simple	exhumer
	compound	avoir + past participle
present participle or gerund1	simple	exhumant /ɛɡ.zy.mɑ̃/
	compound	ayant + past participle
past participle		exhumé /ɛɡ.zy.me/
		singular			plural
		first	second	third	first	second	third
indicative		je (j’)	tu	il, elle, on	nous	vous	ils, elles
(simple tenses)	present	exhume /ɛɡ.zym/	exhumes /ɛɡ.zym/	exhume /ɛɡ.zym/	exhumons /ɛɡ.zy.mɔ̃/	exhumez /ɛɡ.zy.me/	exhument /ɛɡ.zym/
	imperfect	exhumais /ɛɡ.zy.mɛ/	exhumais /ɛɡ.zy.mɛ/	exhumait /ɛɡ.zy.mɛ/	exhumions /ɛɡ.zy.mjɔ̃/	exhumiez /ɛɡ.zy.mje/	exhumaient /ɛɡ.zy.mɛ/
	past historic2	exhumai /ɛɡ.zy.me/	exhumas /ɛɡ.zy.ma/	exhuma /ɛɡ.zy.ma/	exhumâmes /ɛɡ.zy.mam/	exhumâtes /ɛɡ.zy.mat/	exhumèrent /ɛɡ.zy.mɛʁ/
	future	exhumerai /ɛɡ.zym.ʁe/	exhumeras /ɛɡ.zym.ʁa/	exhumera /ɛɡ.zym.ʁa/	exhumerons /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɔ̃/	exhumerez /ɛɡ.zym.ʁe/	exhumeront /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɔ̃/
	conditional	exhumerais /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɛ/	exhumerais /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɛ/	exhumerait /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɛ/	exhumerions /ɛɡ.zy.mə.ʁjɔ̃/	exhumeriez /ɛɡ.zy.mə.ʁje/	exhumeraient /ɛɡ.zym.ʁɛ/
(compound tenses)	present perfect	present indicative of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect	imperfect indicative of avoir + past participle
	past anterior2	past historic of avoir + past participle
	future perfect	future of avoir + past participle
	conditional perfect	conditional of avoir + past participle
subjunctive		que je (j’)	que tu	qu’il, qu’elle	que nous	que vous	qu’ils, qu’elles
(simple tenses)	present	exhume /ɛɡ.zym/	exhumes /ɛɡ.zym/	exhume /ɛɡ.zym/	exhumions /ɛɡ.zy.mjɔ̃/	exhumiez /ɛɡ.zy.mje/	exhument /ɛɡ.zym/
	imperfect2	exhumasse /ɛɡ.zy.mas/	exhumasses /ɛɡ.zy.mas/	exhumât /ɛɡ.zy.ma/	exhumassions /ɛɡ.zy.ma.sjɔ̃/	exhumassiez /ɛɡ.zy.ma.sje/	exhumassent /ɛɡ.zy.mas/
(compound tenses)	past	present subjunctive of avoir + past participle
	pluperfect2	imperfect subjunctive of avoir + past participle
imperative		–	tu	–	nous	vous	–
simple		—	exhume /ɛɡ.zym/	—	exhumons /ɛɡ.zy.mɔ̃/	exhumez /ɛɡ.zy.me/	—
compound		—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	simple imperative of avoir + past participle	—
1 The French gerund is usable only with the preposition en.
2 In less formal writing or speech, these tenses may be found to have been replaced in the following way: past historic → present perfect past anterior → pluperfect imperfect subjunctive → present subjunctive pluperfect subjunctive → past subjunctive (Christopher Kendris [1995], Master the Basics: French, pp. 77, 78, 79, 81).

Derived terms

• exhumation

Further reading

• “exhumer”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.