hearse

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. The Oscan term is related to Latin hirsutus (“bristly, shaggy”). Doublet of hirsute.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /hɜːs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /hɜɹs/, [hɝs]
• Rhymes: -ɜː(r)s

hearse (plural hearses)

1. A hind (female deer) in the second year of her age.
2. 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.
3. A grave, coffin, tomb, or sepulchral monument.
   • Ben Jonson

     underneath this marble hearse

   • Fairfax

     Beside the hearse a fruitful palm tree grows.

   • Longfellow

     who lies beneath this sculptured hearse

4. A bier or handbarrow for conveying the dead to the grave.
   • Shakespeare

     Set down, set down your honourable load, / If honour may be shrouded in a hearse.

5. A carriage or vehicle specially adapted or used for transporting a dead person to the place of funeral or to the grave.

• hearse in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “hearse” in the Collins English Dictionary, Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers.
• “hearse”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

hearse (third-person singular simple present hearses, present participle hearsing, simple past and past participle hearsed)

1. (dated) To enclose in a hearse; to entomb.
   • 1596-97, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III Scene 1

     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!

• harees, sharee