Book of the Dead
Book of the Dead proper noun: an ancient Egyptian funerary text of the New Kingdom consisting of spells to assist the journey of the dead into the afterlife, developed from the earlier Coffin Texts.
Proper noun
Book of the Dead
- An ancient Egyptian funerary text of the New Kingdom consisting of spells to assist the journey of the dead into the afterlife, developed from the earlier Coffin Texts.
- Any comparable text from another culture intended to serve as a guide to the experiences one has after death, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead or Ethiopian Book of the Dead.
Book of the Dead meaning in Sanskrit and Arabic
Book of the Dead in Sanskrit
- ancient Egyptian funerary text
- प्रेतग्रन्थ pretagrantha
Book of the Dead in Arabic
- ancient Egyptian funerary text
- كِتَاب الْمَوْتَى kitāb al-mawtā
Origin of Book of the Dead
A calque of German Todtenbuch (der Ägypter), used by Karl Richard Lepsius in his 1842 publication describing the text.
Questions about Book of the Dead
- What does Book of the Dead mean?
- Book of the Dead means an ancient Egyptian funerary text of the New Kingdom consisting of spells to assist the journey of the dead into the afterlife, developed from the earlier Coffin Texts.
- What is Book of the Dead in Sanskrit?
- Book of the Dead in Sanskrit is प्रेतग्रन्थ (pretagrantha). See Book of the Dead meaning in Sanskrit.
- What part of speech is Book of the Dead?
- Book of the Dead is a proper noun.
Words near Book of the Dead in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Book of the Dead (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “Book of the Dead.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/book_of_the_dead. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.