Other forms: cemeteries
A cemetery is the ground where the dead are buried under headstones. A village cemetery, walk through the cemetery, a war cemetery.
It differs from a churchyard in being separate from a church, and the great garden cemeteries of the nineteenth century were built because city churchyards had filled beyond capacity. Note the spelling, which has three e's and no a; and that the Greek behind it means a sleeping place.
1nouncemeteryGround where the dead are buried.
“Her grandparents are buried in the cemetery on the hill.”
cemetery is a burial ground.
Also accepted in games: graveyard
Greek koimeterion means a sleeping place, from koiman, to put to sleep. The Christian use turned it into a burial ground.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱey-
Ancient Greek
κοιμητήριον
Latin
coemētērium
Medieval Latin
cimitērium
Old French
cimitiere
Middle English
cimiterie
English, today
cemetery
Built from
From Middle English cimiterie, from Old French cimitiere, from Medieval Latin cimitērium, from Latin coemētērium, from Ancient Greek κοιμητήριον, from κοιμάω (“I put to sleep”); compare cœmeterium. charnel and līctūn.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA