rest in power
rest in power phrase: said to mourn, remember, or celebrate a deceased person, particularly activists and victims of oppression.
Phrase
rest in power
- Said to mourn, remember, or celebrate a deceased person, particularly activists and victims of oppression.
- A wall displays the local gang's roster—hundreds of names spraypainted in furious, spidery lettering. Someone points to the "R.I.P." section: more than a dozen names. "Rest in Power," mumbles one of the boys.1992, Rubén Martínez, “Going Up in L.A.”, in The Other Side: Fault Lines, Guerrilla Saints, and the True Heart of Rock 'n' Roll, page 104
- About a mile from the cemetery entrance, hundreds lined the streets, holding up umbrellas and makeshift tents to protect themselves from the unrelenting sun. They doodled chalk messages of “rest in power” and “be the change” along the sidewalk, and periodically broke out in chants: “Say his name!...2020 June 10, Vivian Ho, “'He'll change the world': George Floyd's family pays emotional tribute as crowds flock to funeral”, in The Guardian
- Antonyms:
- rest in piss
Antonyms of rest in power
Origin of rest in power
Modelled on rest in peace. According to Barry Popik, the term likely originated in the graffiti community of Oakland, California.
Questions about rest in power
- What does rest in power mean?
- Rest in power means said to mourn, remember, or celebrate a deceased person, particularly activists and victims of oppression.
- What part of speech is rest in power?
- Rest in power is a phrase.
Words near rest in power in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rest in power (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:
Cite this entry: “rest in power.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rest_in_power. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.