churchyard

noun

church·​yard ˈchərch-ˌyärd How to pronounce churchyard (audio)
: a yard that belongs to a church and is often used as a burial ground

Examples of churchyard in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The church tower came into view and Mr. O’Shea turned in to a churchyard bordered by cypress and yew trees. Mary Costello, The New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2023 In Ham, after the trespass, the group stopped in a churchyard for lunch, where more thermoses of tea emerged from backpacks. Brooke Jarvis, New York Times, 26 July 2023 Last summer, O’Farrell presided over a ceremony for the planting of a pair of trees in the churchyard — one commemorating Hamnet, the other Judith. Andrew Dickson, New York Times, 7 Apr. 2023 His company has now taken on the task of mapping every churchyard and municipal burial ground in England—a total of more than 18,000—to create a Google Street View of graveyards in which descendants, genealogists, and conservationists can click on a map and see who was buried there and when. WIRED, 25 Nov. 2022 At one point, the thieves threatened to burn the painting unless their demands were met, but unlike The Concert, The Guitar Player was safely recovered with the help of an anonymous tip: a detective found the canvas, wrapped in newspaper, propped up against an old headstone in a London churchyard. Ruth Bernard Yeazell, The New York Review of Books, 23 Feb. 2021 Yellow insulation littered the churchyard. Anchorage Daily News, 28 Aug. 2020 DeathLab has proposed suspending the glowing pods from the underside of the Manhattan Bridge, which would serve as a communal space for grief and a kind of geographic memento mori, much in the way a village churchyard once did. Curbed, 6 May 2022 Yet there'd be outrage if someone went into a churchyard and starting digging up the dead of 300 years ago. Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 19 Sep. 2011

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'churchyard.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

12th century, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of churchyard was in the 12th century

Dictionary Entries Near churchyard

Cite this Entry

“Churchyard.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/churchyard. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

churchyard

noun
church·​yard ˈchərch-ˌyärd How to pronounce churchyard (audio)
: a yard that belongs to a church and is often used as a burial ground

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