cemetery: [14] Not surprisingly for a word having associations with death, cemetery’s origins are euphemistic. It comes via late Latin coemētērium from Greek koimētérion, which originally meant ‘dormitory’ (it was a derivative of the verb koiman ‘put to sleep’); it was apparently early Greek Christian writers who first applied the word to burial grounds.
cemetery (n.)
late 14c., from Old French cimetiere "graveyard" (12c.), from Late Latin coemeterium, from Greek koimeterion "sleeping place, dormitory," from koiman "to put to sleep," keimai "I lie down," from PIE root *kei- "to lie, rest," also "bed, couch," hence secondary sense of "beloved, dear" (cognates: Greek keisthai "to lie, lie asleep," Old Church Slavonic semija "family, domestic servants," Lithuanian šeima "domestic servants," Lettish sieva "wife," Old English hiwan "members of a household," higid "measure of land," Latin cunae "a cradle," Sanskrit Sivah "propitious, gracious"). Early Christian writers were the first to use it for "burial ground," though the Greek word also had been anciently used in reference to the sleep of death. An Old English word for "cemetery" was licburg.
实用例句
1. We got arrested once, for singing bawdy songs in a cemetery.
我们曾经因为在公墓唱下流歌曲而被拘留过一次。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The whole area has been shocked by the desecration of the cemetery.
