obit
/ˈɒbɪt/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.41 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A mass or other service held for the soul of a dead person.
Example Sentences
- "Medieval wills often contained bequests to pay for the singing of special (non-perpetual) masses on the testator's behalf. These obits, as they were called, combined alms for the poor with masses for the dead."
- "So a proposed US series, called Circling the Drain, is certainly breaking new ground. It involves a 25-year-old reporter (played by Caprica's Alessandra Torresani) who is reassigned from a paper's style section to its obits desk."
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman obit, Middle French obit, and their source, Latin obitus (“going down; death”), from obīre (“to go down, to die”).
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *h₁ey-, obitus
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˈɒbɪt/