cerement
nounEtymology From French cirement (“waxing, wax dressing”), from cirer (“to wax, wrap”).
1
Often A burial shroud or garment.
- […]; but tell / Why thy Canoniz’d bones Hearſed in death, / Haue burſt their cerments, why the Sepulcher / Wherein we ſaw thee quietly enurn’d, / Hath op’d his ponderous and Marble iawes, / To caſt thee vp againe?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 257, column 1:
- Oh! when his sacred dust The cerements of the tomb shall burst, Might I be worthy at his feet to rise, To yonder blissful skies, Where angel-hosts resplendent shine, Jehovah!—Lord of Hosts, the glory shall be thine.1834, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Barzillai the Gileadite, page 26:
2 more examples
- "Who is the woman in the cerements?", she inconsequently wondered.1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 77
- The cerements still cling to their wasted frames, but will soon be exchanged for a gayer garb in their passage from the tomb to the temple.1921, Sir James George Frazer, Apollodorus: The Library (Loeb Classical Library), volume I, Introduction, § 1: “The Author and His Book”, page xxvii
2
Specifically Cerecloth.
- Synonyms
- winding clothes, winding sheet, pall
- Derived terms
- unceremented