hatchment

Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word hatchment. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word hatchment, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say hatchment in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word hatchment you have here. The definition of the word hatchment will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofhatchment, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.

English

Funerary hatchment of Thomas White, in St Nicholas' Church, Tuxford.

Etymology

From Middle French hachement, a modification of Old French acesmement (adornment) (related to Italian accismare); not, as is often claimed, an alteration of achievement.[1]

Pronunciation

Noun

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

hatchment (plural hatchments)

  1. (heraldry) A display of the arms, supporters, crests, motto, etc of a deceased person, placed within a black lozenge and hung on a wall
    • 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 275, column 1:
      No Trophee, Sword, nor Hatchment o're his bones.
    • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 7, in Vanity Fair , London: Bradbury and Evans , published 1848, →OCLC:
      Having passed through Gaunt Square into Great Gaunt Street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall gloomy house between two other tall gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room window; as is the custom of houses in Great Gaunt Street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual.
    • 1953 June, “Royal Railway Journeys”, in Railway Magazine, page 372:
      Immediately the Railway Executive received the news, the former London & North Eastern Railway special rolling stock was prepared, including the saloon always used as a hearse coach, which was painted black and decorated each side with hatchments of the Royal Arms.
    • 2012 October 8, Daniel W. Patterson, The True Image: Gravestone Art and the Culture of Scotch Irish Settlers in the Pennsylvania and Carolina Backcountry, UNC Press Books, →ISBN, page 141:
      The second and third quarters of the shield are indecipherable on the stone but clearer in two other representations of the arms, a painted wooden funeral hatchment for Mary Davie []

Translations

References

  1. ^ hatchment, n.1.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2017.