hearse
/hɝs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.80 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.
noun
A grave, coffin, tomb, or sepulchral monument.
noun
A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.
noun
A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.
noun
Alternative form of hearst (“A hind (female deer) in the second or third year of her age”).
Example Sentences
- "underneath this sable hearse"
- "Beside the hearse a fruitful palm tree grows,"
- "who lies beneath this sculptured hearse"
- "Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse."
- "I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!"
Etymology
From Middle English herse, hers, herce, from Old French herce in the sense "triangular framework used to support candles". Ultimately the same word as Old French herce (“harrow”), from Latin *herpicem, accusative singular of *herpex, a variant form of hirpex (“harrow”). The agricultural device's name comes from Oscan hirpus (“wolf”), a reference to a harrow's many teeth. The term for wolf may ultimately be from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“stiff, rigid, bristled”). The Oscan term is related to Latin hīrsūtus (“bristly, shaggy”), whence English hirsute. The TLFi considers the "framework to support candles" sense of the French word to be derived more specifically from Medieval Latin hercia; in any case, this is ultimately from the same source. (Du Cange sees in hercia a contraction of an extended form *herpicia. It may instead simply be a Latinization of Old French herce.) Doublet of herse (“kind of gate”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /hɝs/
- British English: /hɜːs/