cerement
English
editEtymology
editFrom French cirement (“waxing, wax dressing”), from cirer (“to wax, wrap”).
Noun
editcerement (plural cerements)
Quotations
edit- 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, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death, have burst their cerements.
- 1834, Lydia Sigourney, Poems, Barzillai the Gileadite, page 26:
- 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.
- 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 77
- "Who is the woman in the cerements?", she inconsequently wondered.
- 1921, Sir James George Frazer, Apollodorus: The Library (Loeb Classical Library), volume I, Introduction, § 1: “The Author and His Book”, page xxvii:
- 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.
- 1971, Anthony Burgess, M/F, Penguin, published 2004, page 62:
- Her red robe billowed, all in wood, except where the great phallic spike of her martyrdom had called forth blood to tack the cerement to her body.
Synonyms
editDerived terms
editTranslations
editcerecloth — see cerecloth