herse
/hɜːs/US/hɜɹs/
herse noun: a kind of gate or portcullis, having iron bars, like a harrow, studded with iron spikes, hung above gateways so that it may be quickly lowered to impede the advance of an enemy. Also the obsolete form of hearse.
Noun (1)
herse (plural herses)
- A kind of gate or portcullis, having iron bars, like a harrow, studded with iron spikes, hung above gateways so that it may be quickly lowered to impede the advance of an enemy.
- In the south aisle, on a slab raised on four low shafts and covered by an iron herse, is a fine coloured recumbent effigy of a bishop1848, Benjamin Webb, Sketches of Continental Ecclesiolgy
Noun (2)
herse (plural herses)
Proper noun capitalized: Herse
Herse
- One of the moons of Jupiter.
Also used as
herse is also the obsolete form of hearse.
herse is also the alternative form of hearse.
Forms of herse
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | herses |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | herses |
| present participle | hersing |
| past participle | hersed |
| past | hersed |
Origin of herse
From Middle English hierche (“type of harrow”), from Middle French herce, herse. Doublet of hearse.
See hearse.
Words that rhyme with herse
36 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- purse
- worse
- -verse
- coerce
- converse
- excurse
- immerse
- multiverse
- obverse
- terce
- terse
- amerce
- asperse
- neurodiverse
- perse
- reimburse
- transverse
- a blessing and a curse
- absterse
- accurse
- costotransverse
- demerse
- disburse
- Erse
- intertransverse
- megadiverse
- murse
- nontransverse
- pretransverse
- public purse
- recurse
- renverse
- sperse
- submerse
- subtransverse
- thurse
Questions about herse
- What does herse mean?
- Herse means a kind of gate or portcullis, having iron bars, like a harrow, studded with iron spikes, hung above gateways so that it may be quickly lowered to impede the advance of an enemy.
- What part of speech is herse?
- Herse can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce herse?
- Herse is pronounced /hɜːs/ (UK).
- What is the plural of herse?
- The plural of herse is herses.
Words near herse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: herse (page history and authors); Herse (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-hearse.wav.
Cite this entry: “herse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/herse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.