noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Cloth coated with wax so that it is waterproof, used for covering the dead. countable, historical, uncountable

   "’Twere damnation To think so base a thought; it were too gross To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave."

2. 2
   a waterproof waxed cloth once used as a shroud wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

canopychrismalcorporalcoverpallshroud

Example

More examples

"’Twere damnation To think so base a thought; it were too gross To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave."

Etymology

From cere + cloth, from Latin cera (“wax, cere”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.