noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
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"underneath this sable hearse"
"Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse."
"I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! would she were hearsed at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin!"
"I don't mind since I'm used to it, but the first guy who thought about making a hearse with a golden roof on top of it, he must have had quite bad taste."
A framework of wood or metal placed over the coffin or tomb of a deceased person, and covered with a pall; also, a temporary canopy bearing wax lights and set up in a church, under which the coffin was placed during the funeral ceremonies.
Common synonyms include: automobile, bury, catafalque, enshrine, entomb, funeral car.
I don't mind since I'm used to it, but the first guy who thought about making a hearse with a golden roof on top of it, he must have had quite bad taste.
Pronounced /hɜːs/.
From Middle English herse, hers, herce, from Old French herce, from Medieval Latin hercia, from Latin herpicem, hirpex; ultimately from Oscan 𐌇𐌉𐌓𐌐𐌖𐌔 (hirpus, “wolf”), a reference to the teeth, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰers- (“stiff, rigid, bristled”). The Oscan term is related to Latin hīrsūtus (“bristly, shaggy”), whence English hirsute. Doublet of herse (“kind of gate”).