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obituary.

A brief notice of a person's death, especially one published in a newspaper or other publication; also (obsolete), the section of a newspaper where notices of deaths are published.

8 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/əˈbɪt͡ʃʊ(ə)ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əˈbɪt͡ʃɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əˈbɪtjʊ(ə)ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əʊ-/Received-Pronunciation
  1. A brief notice of a person's death, especially one published in a newspaper or other publication; also (obsolete), the section of a newspaper where notices of deaths are published.

  2. A brief biography of a person (especially one who is well-known) who has recently died, usually describing their life and achievements, particularly in the form of an article in a news publication or an item in a news broadcast.

    broadly
  3. An announcement or description of the end of something.

    figuratively
  4. A register of deaths, especially one maintained by a religious institution; a necrology.

    historical
Where this word comes from

PIE word *h₁epi Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin obituārius (“obituary”) + English -ary (suffix denoting something relating to another thing or used in a place). Obituārius is derived from Latin obitus (“act of approaching or going toward, an approach; act of going down, setting; of the sun: sunset; death; destruction, downfall, ruin”) + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives and agent nouns); while obitus is a noun use of the perfect passive participle of obeō (“to go to meet, go towards; (figurative) to die, pass away, perish; (astronomy) to set”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘toward’) + eō (“to go, move”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”).

adj/əˈbɪt͡ʃʊ(ə)ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əˈbɪt͡ʃɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əˈbɪtjʊ(ə)ɹi/Received-Pronunciation/əʊ-/Received-Pronunciation
  1. Relating to obituaries.

    He is the paper's obituary editor.
Where this word comes from

PIE word *h₁epi Learned borrowing from Medieval Latin obituārius (“obituary”) + English -ary (suffix denoting something relating to another thing or used in a place). Obituārius is derived from Latin obitus (“act of approaching or going toward, an approach; act of going down, setting; of the sun: sunset; death; destruction, downfall, ruin”) + -ārius (suffix forming adjectives and agent nouns); while obitus is a noun use of the perfect passive participle of obeō (“to go to meet, go towards; (figurative) to die, pass away, perish; (astronomy) to set”), from ob- (prefix meaning ‘toward’) + eō (“to go, move”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ey- (“to go”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.