urn

See also: URN, urṇ, and urn.

English

Alternative forms

• urne (obsolete)

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɜːn/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɝn/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)n
• Homophone: earn

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, 1993 edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, →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. (figuratively) Any place of burial; the grave.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, / Tombless, with no remembrance over them.

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.

Translations

a vase with a footed base

• Asturian: urna f
• Bulgarian: урна f (urna)
• Catalan: urna (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 甕／瓮 (zh) (wèng)

• Esperanto: urno (eo)
• Faliscan: urna (urna)
• French: urne (fr)
• German: Urne (de) f
• Greek: υδρία (el) f (ydría)
• Hungarian: urna (hu)
• Indonesian: pasu (id)
• Italian: urna (it) f
• Latin: urna (la) f
• Macedonian: урна f (urna), ќуп m (ḱup)
• Norwegian: urne (no) m or f
• Portuguese: urna (pt) f
• Russian: у́рна (ru) f (úrna)
• Spanish: urna (es) f
• Yiddish: אורנע‎ f (urne)

a metal vessel for serving tea or coffee

• German: Kaffeespender m (coffee), Teespender m (tea), Heißgetränkespender m (hot drinks)
• Russian: ча́йник (ru) m (čájnik) (for tea), кофе́йник (ru) m (koféjnik) (for coffee)

a vessel for ashes or cremains of a deceased person

• Armenian: սափոր (hy) (sapʿor)
• Bulgarian: урна f (urna)
• Czech: urna (cs) f
• French: urne (fr) f
• German: Urne (de) f
• Greek: τεφροδόχος (el) (tefrodóchos)

  Ancient: λάρναξ f (lárnax)

• Hungarian: urna (hu)
• Icelandic: duftker n, duftker n
• Indonesian: perabuan (id)
• Latin: urna (la) f
• Macedonian: урна f (urna)
• Norwegian: urne (no) m or f
• Polish: urna (pl) f
• Portuguese: urna (pt) f
• Russian: у́рна (ru) f (úrna)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: жара f

  Roman: žara (sh) f

• Slovene: žara (sl) f
• Spanish: urna (es) f

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

• urn on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Nur, nur, run

Dutch

Alternative forms

• urne

Etymology

Latin urna.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʏrn/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: urn
• Rhymes: -ʏrn

Noun

urn f (plural urnen, diminutive urntje n)

1. funerary urn

   Synonym: asvaas

2. any other footed vase

Derived terms

• urnenmuur
• urnenveld