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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

tomb.

A small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/tuːm/Received-Pronunciation, Wales/tʉwm/British, Southern, Standard/tum/Canada, US/tʉːm/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. A small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed.

  2. A pit in which the dead body of a human being is deposited.

    broadly

  3. One who keeps secrets.

  4. Death (literary)

    I'll go to the tomb unrepentant.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English tombe, toumbe, borrowed from Old French tombe, from Latin tumba from Ancient Greek τύμβος (túmbos, “a sepulchral mound, tomb, grave”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”). Displaced native Old English þrūh. The verb is from Middle English tomben.

verb/tuːm/Received-Pronunciation, Wales/tʉwm/British, Southern, Standard/tum/Canada, US/tʉːm/Australia, New-Zealand

  1. To bury.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English tombe, toumbe, borrowed from Old French tombe, from Latin tumba from Ancient Greek τύμβος (túmbos, “a sepulchral mound, tomb, grave”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”). Displaced native Old English þrūh. The verb is from Middle English tomben.

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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.