inurn
English
Alternative forms
- enurn (obsolete)
Etymology
Verb
inurn (third-person singular simple present inurns, present participle inurning, simple past and past participle inurned)
- (transitive) To place (the remains of a person who has died) in an urn or other container.
- Synonyms: bury, ensepulchre, entomb, inhume, inter, lay to rest
- c. 1600 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 [4], in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, London, 1623, p. 257,[1]
- 1760, Charlotte Lennox, The Lady’s Museum, London: J. Newbery, Volume 1, “The Natural History of the Formica-Leo, or Lion-Pismire,” p. 314,[2]
- […] 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.
- 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Paris: Galignani, Canto 1, stanza 4, p. 4,[3]
- 1994, William R. Maples and Michael Browning, Dead Men Do Tell Tales, New York: Doubleday, Chapter 10, p. 136,[4]
- 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.
- (transitive) To hold or contain (the remains of a person who has died).
- 1792, Thomas Watkins, Travels through Swisserland, Italy, Sicily, the Greek Islands, to Constantinople, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 18, p. 350,[5]
- 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.
- 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,[6]
- Over the insensible marble, which inurns their ashes, a nation bows prostrate in the lowly attitude of mourning,
- 1838, George Hill, “The Battle of San Jacinto” in The Ruins of Athens; Titania’s Banquet, A Mask; and Other Poems, Boston: Otis, Broaders, p. 79,[7]
- […] as the plough turns
- Some warlike relic from the sod,
- Whose mould the battle-ranks inurns,
- 1884, James Thomson, “The Poet and His Muse” in A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, p. 59,[8]
- Though you exist still, a mere form inurning
- The ashes of dead fires of thought and yearning,
- 1792, Thomas Watkins, Travels through Swisserland, Italy, Sicily, the Greek Islands, to Constantinople, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 18, p. 350,[5]