Thanatopsis
//θænəˈtɒpsɪs// noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Contemplation of death.
- 2 an essay expressing a view on the subject of death wordnet
Etymology
From Ancient Greek θάνατος (thánatos, “death”) + ὄψις (ópsis, “seeing”), via the poem "Thanatopsis" by William Cullen Bryant. Although a surface analysis of thanato- + -opsis readily suggests itself and might invite a semantic expectation of deathliness, Bryant's sense of the word corresponds to "the seeing of death" rather than "the appearance/likeness of death".
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.