obituary

English

Etymology

From Medieval Latin obituarius, from Latin obitus (“a going to a place, approach, usually a going down, setting (as of the sun), fall, ruin, death”), from obire (“to go or come to, usually go down, set, fall, perish, die”), from ob (“toward, to”) + ire (“to go”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈbɪtjʊəɹɪ/, /əʊ̯ˈbɪtjʊəɹɪ/, /əˈbɪtjʊəɹiː/, /əʊ̯ˈbɪtjʊəɹiː/

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˈbɪt͡ʃuˌɜɹi/, /oʊˈbɪt͡ʃuˌɜɹi/, /əˈbɪt͡ʃəɹi/, /oʊˈbɪt͡ʃəɹi/

Noun

obituary (plural obituaries)

1. A brief notice of a person’s death, as published in a newspaper.

   Synonym: (colloquial) obit

   • 2001, Marc Klein, Serendipity, spoken by Dean (Jeremy Piven):

     You know the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?".

   • 2007, Bridget Fowler, The Obituary as Collective Memory, Routledge, →ISBN:

     Obituary editors are confronted daily with the need to make delicate hermeneutic interpretations of the social meaning of individuals' deaths and to express these powerfully to their readership.

2. A biography of a recently deceased person, written by a journalist and published in a newspaper.
3. A register of deaths in a monastery.

Related terms

• obit
• obitual
• obituarist

Translations

brief notice of a person's death, as published in a newspaper

• Afrikaans: doodberig
• Arabic: نَعْي‎ (naʕy)
• Bulgarian: некролог m (nekrolog)
• Catalan: esquela f
• Cherokee: ᏕᎦᏃᏣᎸᎤᏲᎱᏒ (deganotsalvuyohusv)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 訃告／讣告 (zh) (fùgào), 訃聞／讣闻 (zh) (fùwén)

• Danish: dødsannonce c
• Dutch: doodsbrief
• Esperanto: nekrologo
• Finnish: kuolinilmoitus (fi)
• French: nécrologie (fr) f
• Galician: necrolóxica f
• German: Todesanzeige (de) f, Traueranzeige f, Nekrolog (de) m
• Greek: αναγγελία θανάτου f (anangelía thanátou), νεκρολογία (el) f (nekrología)
• Hebrew: מוֹדַעַת אֵבֶל‎ (he) f (moda'át evel)
• Hungarian: gyászjelentés (hu)
• Icelandic: minning (is)
• Ido: nekrologo (io)
• Indonesian: berita duka (id), kabar duka (id)
• Irish: scéala báis m
• Japanese: 死亡記事 (しぼうきじ, shibō kiji)
• Korean: 부고(訃告) (ko) (bugo)
• Lithuanian: nekrologas (lt) m
• Norwegian: nekrolog (no) m, dødsannonse m
• Persian: اعلامیه فوت‎ (e'lâmiye-ye fowt)
• Plautdietsch: Läwensvezeichniss n
• Polish: nekrolog (pl) m
• Portuguese: obituário (pt) m
• Romanian: necrolog (ro) n
• Russian: некроло́г (ru) m (nekrológ)
• Scottish Gaelic: iomradh-bàis m
• Slovene: osmrtnica f
• Spanish: esquela (es) f, necrología f, obituario (es)
• Swedish: dödsannons (sv) c, dödsnotis c, minnesord pl
• Tagalog: obitwaryo
• Telugu: స్మృతి (te) (smr̥ti)
• Welsh: ysgrif goffa f

biography of a recently deceased person

• Cherokee: ᏕᎦᏃᏣᎸᎤᏲᎱᏒ (deganotsalvuyohusv)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 訃告／讣告 (zh) (fùgào), 訃聞／讣闻 (zh) (fùwén)

• Czech: nekrolog (cs) m
• Dutch: necrologie (nl) f
• Finnish: muistokirjoitus (fi)
• Galician: obituario m
• German: Nachruf (de) m, Nekrolog (de) m
• Greek: νεκρολογία (el) f (nekrología)
• Hungarian: nekrológ (hu)
• Japanese: 死亡者略歴 (shibousharyakureki)
• Lithuanian: nekrologas (lt) m
• Maori: kupu poroporoaki
• Norwegian: minneord n, nekrolog (no) m
• Portuguese: obituário (pt) m
• Romanian: necrolog (ro) n
• Russian: некроло́г (ru) m (nekrológ)
• Scottish Gaelic: iomradh-bàis m
• Slovene: nekrolog m, osmrtnica f
• Spanish: obituario (es) m
• Swedish: minnesord pl, nekrolog (sv) c, dödsruna (sv) c
• Tagalog: obitwaryo

See also

• necrology (listing of people who have died during a specific period of time)

Adjective

obituary (not comparable)

1. Relating to the death of a person.

Further reading

• “obituary”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “obituary”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• obituary at OneLook Dictionary Search
• “obituary”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.