tombstone

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

Also spelled tombstean and tombsteans

US /ˈtumstoʊn/ UK /ˈtuːmstəʊn/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a stone marker placed over a grave, usually bearing the deceased's name

Moss had crept over the weathered tombstone.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a stone marker placed over... gravestone headstone monument marker memorial slab

Word family

Related forms tomb gravestone headstone

Etymology

A compound of tomb (from Old French tombe, from Late Latin tumba, from Ancient Greek tymbos 'burial mound') and stone.

tumba Latin τύμβος Ancient Greek

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# tombstone

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

## Meanings
1. a stone marker placed over a grave, usually bearing the deceased's name

## Examples
- Moss had crept over the weathered tombstone.

## Synonyms
- gravestone
- headstone
- monument
- marker
- memorial
- slab

## Related Forms
- tomb
- gravestone
- headstone

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: tumba
- Root: τύμβος

## Etymology
A compound of tomb (from Old French tombe, from Late Latin tumba, from Ancient Greek tymbos 'burial mound') and stone.

## AI Etymology
Tombstone is a compound of tomb (from Old French tombe, from Late Latin tumba, from Ancient Greek tymbos 'burial mound') and stone. The historical chain includes Latin tumba and Ancient Greek τύμβος. The quoted older sense, "burial mound," supplies the immediate semantic anchor for tombstone. The formation is best read as compound and borrowed: the word tombstone carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a stone marker placed over a grave, usually bearing the deceased's name". Related English forms include tomb, gravestone, and headstone. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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