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Origin and history of burial

burial(n.)

"act of burying," late 13c.; earlier "tomb" (c. 1200), false singular from Old English byrgels "tomb," from byrgan "to bury" + suffix -els; a compound also found in Old Saxon burgisli, suggesting a Proto-Germanic *burgisli-, from PIE root *bhergh- (1) "to hide, protect." The Germanic suffix *-isli- (also in riddle (n.1), Old English hydels "hiding place," fætels "bag") became obsolete and was felt as a plural of the Latin-derived suffix -al (2) forming nouns of action from verbs (survival, approval, removal, etc.). In the "act of burying a dead person" sense it is now regarded as bury + -al. Burial-ground is from 1803.

also from late 13c.

Entries linking to burial

riddle(n.1)

"A word game or joke, comprising a question or statement couched in deliberately puzzling terms, propounded for solving by the hearer/reader using clues embedded within that wording" [Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore], early 13c., redels, from Old English rædels "riddle; counsel; conjecture; imagination; discussion," common Germanic (Old Frisian riedsal "riddle," Old Saxon radisli, Middle Dutch raetsel, Dutch raadsel, Old High German radisle, German Rätsel "riddle").

The first element is from Proto-Germanic *redaz- (from PIE *re-dh-, from root *re- "to reason, count"). The ending is Old English noun suffix -els, the -s of which later was mistaken for a plural affix and stripped off in early Modern English. The meaning "anything which puzzles or perplexes" is from late 14c.

reburial(n.)

"a second or subsequent burial, a burying again," also re-burial, 1783; see re- "back, again" + burial (n.). Related: Rebury; reburied.

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Trends of burial

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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cemetery

"burial ground, place set aside for burial of the dead," late 14c., cimiterie, from Old French cimetiere "graveyard" (12c...Early Christian writers were the first to use it for "burial ground," though the Greek word also had been anciently used...In 19c. typically a large public burial ground not attached to a church....

funeral

late 14c., "pertaining to the burial of the dead," mid-15c., from Medieval Latin funeralia "funeral rites," originally neuter...of Late Latin funeralis "having to do with a funeral," from Latin funus (genitive funeris) "funeral, funeral procession, burial...

Capri

island in the Bay of Naples, a name of unknown origin: Latin capra "she-goat," Greek kapros "boar," Etruscan capra "burial...

mausoleum

General sense of "any stately burial-place" (now usually one designed to contain a number of tombs) is from c. 1600....

cremation

The adoption of cremation would relieve us of a muck of threadbare burial-witticisms; but, on the other hand, it would resurrect...

sepulchre

also sepulcher, c. 1200, sepulcre, "tomb, burial place," especially the cave where Jesus was buried outside Jerusalem (Holy...

cenotaph

French cénotaphe (16c.), from Latin cenotaphium, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos "empty" (see keno-) + taphos "tomb, burial...

hiding

"concealment," early 13c., verbal noun from hide (v.1). Hiding-place is from mid-15c.; an Old English word for this was hydels...."a flogging," 1809, from hide (n.1), perhaps in reference to a whip or thong made of animal hide, or of "tanning" someone's "hide." Old English had hy

survival

1590s, "act of surviving or outliving; continuation after some event," from survive + -al (2). It is attested by 1716 as "one who or that which outlasts or continues after." The phrase survival of the fittest (1864) was used by Spencer in place of Darwin's natural selection to ex

bury

Old English byrgan "to raise a mound, hide, enclose in a grave or tomb, inter," akin to beorgan "to shelter," from Proto-Germanic *burzjan- "protection, shelter" (source also of Old Saxon bergan, Dutch bergen, Old Norse bjarga, Swedish berga, Old High German bergan "protect, shel

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