MORTUARY

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does mortuary mean? 

• MORTUARY (noun)
  The noun MORTUARY has 1 sense:

1. a building (or room) where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation

  Familiarity information: MORTUARY used as a noun is very rare.

• MORTUARY (adjective)
  The adjective MORTUARY has 2 senses:

1. of or relating to or characteristic of death

2. of or relating to a funeral

  Familiarity information: MORTUARY used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MORTUARY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A building (or room) where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

dead room; morgue; mortuary

Hypernyms ("mortuary" is a kind of...):

building; edifice (a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "mortuary"):

crematorium; crematory (a mortuary where corpses are cremated)

funeral-residence; funeral chapel; funeral church; funeral home; funeral parlor; funeral parlour (a mortuary where those who knew the deceased can come to pay their last respects)

Derivation:

mortuary (of or relating to a funeral)

mortuary (of or relating to or characteristic of death)

• MORTUARY (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of or relating to or characteristic of death

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

death (the permanent end of all life functions in an organism or part of an organism)

Derivation:

mortuary (a building (or room) where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of or relating to a funeral

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Pertainym:

funeral (a ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated)

Derivation:

mortuary (a building (or room) where dead bodies are kept before burial or cremation)

 Context examples 

You shall see the body at the mortuary, but we have made nothing of it up to now.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The researchers examined contemporary written sources, inscriptions, coinage, papyrus documents, pollen samples, plague genomes and mortuary archaeology.

(Justinianic plague not a landmark pandemic?, National Science Foundation)

It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death—a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca—and placed in the mortuary to await inquest.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)