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graveyard

graveyard

122 1.8
A place where people are buried after they die
  • noun
  • /ˈɡreɪvˌjɑrd/
translation icon : cementerio
  • Across the road from the church was a small graveyard surrounded by a sagging wire fence.
  • church and its graveyard
  • graveyard and grave site
  • became a graveyard

Maybe she just had to go to the graveyard and leave, right?

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Examples

  • We met in a graveyard.

  • Your hands were cold that night at the graveyard.

  • "There were comments made about buying a graveyard, about this being a waste of resources."

    Academic text (2002)
  • "You ever see the old graveyard when you were out walking?" he asked.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • When I see a graveyard and the moon is full and everything is covered with snow.

    Academic text (2012)
  • The late-nineteenth-century New Jersey estate, across the street from a graveyard, looked bleak in the afternoon light.

    Academic text (2004)
  • A burial ground before 1847, this graveyard became an Army Post cemetery in the 1860s.

    Academic text (2001)
  • They dug the grave in the graveyard at Monticello and buried him.

  • The old graveyard next to the church is filled with ancient tombstones.

  • We walked quietly through the graveyard to pay our respects to the deceased.

Synonyms

cemetery
vsgraveyard
421 2.8

A place where people are buried, often with headstones

is often beside a church rather than outside towns
burial ground
vsgraveyard
21 3.9

A place where people are buried, like a cemetery

is more often located beside a church
churchyard
vsgraveyard
12 3.5

An area of land next to a church for burying people

is a broader burial area not required to adjoin a church
burial site
vsgraveyard
11 3.7

A place where people bury their dead

is traditionally beside a church more often
burying ground
vsgraveyard
  • Archaic
1 6.1

An area of land with graves for dead people, like a cemetery

is usually closer to churches than this general term
boneyard
vsgraveyard
  • Slang
1 8.9

A place where dead people are buried

is the neutral formal burial area rather than slang
memorial park
vsgraveyard
3.5

A cemetery like a park with gardens and simple graves for quietly remembering people who have died

is the older type of burial area often near churches

Compounds

A night work period from midnight to early morning

7.4

A late-night work shift from midnight to early morning on ships or in factories

9.9

A region like Afghanistan where many empires fail

How Big

cemetery
421 2.8
graveyard
122 1.8
churchyard
12 3.5

Surface Forms

graveyard singular
graveyards plural

Morphology

graveyard = grave + yard (transparent) = grave + yard

The meaning is directly the combination of 'grave' (burial place) + 'yard' (an area of ground), so learners can infer it from the parts.

Etymology

Graveyard is made of two simple words: grave meaning 'a hole where a dead person is buried' and yard meaning 'an enclosed area', like the 'yard' in backyard. So a graveyard is literally an enclosed place for graves, which is why it names the land where people are buried.