hic jacet
English edit
Etymology edit
Unadapted borrowing from Latin hīc jacet (“here lies”).
Noun edit
hic jacet (plural hic jacets)
- (archaic) An epitaph (gravestone inscription).
- 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, page 133:
- What, in the precincts of the chapel-yard, / Among the knightly brasses of the graves, / And by the cold Hic Jacets of the dead!
- 1872, John Taylor, A Book about Bristol: Historical, Ecclesiastical, and Biographical, from Original Research, page 132:
- Level with the floor of the middle aisle are brasses of a male and a female figure with a hic jacet inscription denoting that Thomas Rowley, merchant and sheriff, died 33 Jan. 1478 and Margaret his wife, died 1470.
- 1888, Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887, page 458:
- Presently, as I observed the wretched beings about me more closely, I perceived that they were all quite dead. Their bodies were so many living sepulchres. On each brutal brow was plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead within.