Other forms: tombs
A tomb is the chamber a person of importance was buried in. An ancient tomb, open the tomb, the tomb was sealed.
It is a built structure where a grave is a hole, which is why tombs survive and graves do not. Most of what is known about ancient life comes from them, because they were filled with goods and sealed. Note the silent b, and that the Greek tymbos means a burial mound.
1nountombThe chamber a person of importance was buried in.
“Archaeologists opened the pharaoh's tomb and found gold, jewels and a painted coffin.”
tomb is a burial place.
Latin tumba comes from Greek tymbos, a burial mound. The b in English is silent and always was in this word.
Proto-Indo-European
*tewh₂- — to swell
Ancient Greek
τύμβος — a sepulchral mound, tomb, grave
Latin
tumba
Old French
tombe
Middle English
tombe
English, today
tomb
From Middle English tombe, toumbe, borrowed from Old French tombe, from Latin tumba from Ancient Greek τύμβος (“a sepulchral mound, tomb, grave”), probably from Proto-Indo-European tewh₂- (“to swell”). Displaced native þrūh. The verb is from Middle English tomben.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA