headstone

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

Also spelled head-stone

US /ˈhɛdˌstoʊn/ UK /ˈhɛdˌstəʊn/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a stone marker set at the head of a grave

Moss had crept over the weathered letters of the headstone.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a stone marker set at the... gravestone tombstone marker memorial monument

Word family

Related forms head stone

Etymology

A compound of head (the stone set at the head of a grave) and stone, both of Old English origin (heafod, stān).

heafod Old English stān Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# headstone

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈhɛdˌstoʊn/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈhɛdˌstəʊn/

## Meanings
1. a stone marker set at the head of a grave

## Examples
- Moss had crept over the weathered letters of the headstone.

## Synonyms
- gravestone
- tombstone
- marker
- memorial
- monument

## Related Forms
- head
- stone

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: heafod
- Root: stān

## Etymology
A compound of head (the stone set at the head of a grave) and stone, both of Old English origin (heafod, stān).

## AI Etymology
headstone is a compound of head (the stone set at the head of a grave) and stone, both of Old English origin (heafod, stān). Morphologically, the word is best read through the components named in the history, with the modern spelling preserving a compound structure rather than a single unanalyzable stem. In present English, the noun sense is "a stone marker set at the head of a grave", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as head and stone. Its semantic neighborhood includes gravestone, tombstone, marker, and memorial, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Old English heafod and Old English stān.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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