urn

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

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English urne, from Old French urne, from Latin urna (vessel).

Pronunciation

Noun

urn (plural urns)

  1. A vase with a footed base.
    • 1648, John Wilkins, Mathematical Magick:
      A rustic, digging in the ground by Padua, [] found an urn, or earthen pot, in which there was another urn.
    • 1700, [John] Dryden, “Canace to Macareus”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:
      His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, / And once more join us in the pious urn.
    • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 47:
      Mary Fibbs and all her friends start making coughing noises whenever I come near them, and then they all giggle and Mary says Grandfather mixes his cough medicine in the urns on top of the gate posts after dark with his umbrella, and now Jessamy!
  2. A metal vessel for serving tea or coffee.
  3. A vessel for the ashes or cremains of a deceased person.
  4. (figurative) Any place of burial; the grave.
  5. (historical, Roman antiquity) A measure of capacity for liquids, containing about three gallons and a half, wine measure. It was half the amphora, and four times the congius.
  6. (botany) A hollow body shaped like an urn, in which the spores of mosses are contained; a spore case; a theca.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

urn (third-person singular simple present urns, present participle urning, simple past and past participle urned)

  1. (transitive) To place in an urn.

Further reading

Anagrams

Dutch

Alternative forms

Etymology

Latin urna.

Pronunciation

Noun

urn f (plural urnen, diminutive urntje n)

  1. funerary urn
    Synonym: asvaas
  2. any other footed vase

Derived terms