inurn

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From in- + urn.

Verb

inurn (third-person singular simple present inurns, present participle inurning, simple past and past participle inurned)

  1. (transitive) To place (the remains of a person who has died) in an urn or other container.
    Synonyms: bury, ensepulchre, entomb, inhume, inter, lay to rest
    • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies [] (First Folio), London: [] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene 3 [4]]:
      [] the Sepulcher
      Wherein we saw thee quietly enurn’d
      Hath op’d his ponderous and Marble iawes,
      To cast thee vp againe
      the 1603 edition of the play has “interr’d
    • 1760, Charlotte Lennox, “The Natural History of the Formica-Leo, or Lion-Pismire”, in The Lady’s Museum, volume 1, London: J. Newbery, page 314:
      [] it is necessary that he should pass through a period of temporary death, for which state he prepares in the following manner, building to himself a secure and convenient tomb, wherein he lies decently inurned till the appointed moment when he is to arise from his inactive state, and become the inhabitant of another element.
    • 1819 July 15, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London: [] Thomas Davison, [], →OCLC, canto I, stanza 4, page 4:
      Nelson was once Britannia’s god of war,
      And still should be so, but the tide is turn’d;
      There’s no more to be said of Trafalgar,
      ’Tis with our hero quietly inurn’d;
    • 1994, William R. Maples, Michael Browning, chapter 10, in Dead Men Do Tell Tales, New York: Doubleday, page 136:
      Each one [crematory] is different, and there is a wide range in the quality of the work they do and the pains they take in combusting and inurning human remains.
  2. (transitive) To hold or contain (the remains of a person who has died).
    • 1792, Thomas Watkins, Travels through Swisserland, Italy, Sicily, the Greek Islands, to Constantinople, London: T. Cadell, Volume 1, Letter 18, p. 350:
      Now there are no other remains of its [Hadrian’s mausoleum’s] grandeur than a ball of bronze in the Vatican, which crowned its cupola, and was supposed to inurn the ashes of its Imperial founder.
    • 1826, Caleb Cushing, Eulogy given on 15 July, 1826, in A Selection of Eulogies, Pronounced in the Several States, in Honor of [] John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Hartford: D.F. Robinson, p. 21,
      Over the insensible marble, which inurns their ashes, a nation bows prostrate in the lowly attitude of mourning,
    • 1838, George Hill, “The Battle of San Jacinto”, in The Ruins of Athens; Titania’s Banquet, A Mask; and Other Poems, Boston: Otis, Broaders, page 79:
      [] as the plough turns
      Some warlike relic from the sod,
      Whose mould the battle-ranks inurns,
    • 1884, James Thomson, “The Poet and His Muse”, in A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems, London: Reeves and Turner, page 59:
      Though you exist still, a mere form inurning
      The ashes of dead fires of thought and yearning,

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