Inhumations

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of burying a body or corpse in the ground as part of a funeral ritual
2. A burial process involving the interment of remains, often accompanied by specific cultural or religious practices
3. The procedure of placing a deceased individual into a grave, typically marked by customs and ceremonies related to death

Etymology: Inhumations is simply the plural of inhumation, so the term is best understood through its root. Inhumation is a formation from the verb "inhume," which means to bury a body in the ground, combined with the suffix "-ation," which turns a verb into a noun naming the act or process. The verb "inhume" itself is built from Latin "inhumare," meaning to put into the ground, from "in-" (in) and "humus" (earth, ground), the same root that gives English "humble" and "exhume," the reverse of burying. The suffix traces back through Latin "-ātiō," which passed into Old French as "-ation" and then into Middle English as "-aciun," before settling into its modern form. Its ancestry runs much deeper, but the working parts are simply a verb meaning "to lay in the earth" and a noun-forming ending that turns that action into a named event.

Synonyms: burials, interments, entombments