funeral

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A ceremony held for a person who has died, usually with a burial or cremation.

   Hundreds of people attended her funeral.

Borrowed from Middle French funerailles pl (“funeral rites”), from Medieval Latin fūnerālia (“funeral rites”), originally neuter plural of Late Latin fūnerālis (“having to do with a funeral”), from Latin fūnus (“funeral, death, corpse”), origin unknown, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰew- (“to die”). Singular and plural used interchangeably in English until circa 1700. The adjective funereal is first attested 1725, by influence of Middle French funerail, from Latin funereus, from funus. First attested in 1437. Displaced native Old English līcþeġnung (literally “dead body service…

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