tomb
UK/tuːm/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
British/tʉwm/
tomb noun: a small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed.
Noun
tomb (plural tombs)
- A small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed.
- Synonyms:
- burial chamber, sepulchre, vault
- A pit in which the dead body of a human being is deposited.
- As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- Synonyms:
- grave
- One who keeps secrets.
- I never told anyone about it. You're the first, except Ivan, of course—Ivan knows everything. He knew about it long before you. But Ivan's a tomb.1912, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, The Brothers Karamazov, published 1880, Book III, chapter 4
- Death (literary)
- I'll go to the tomb unrepentant.
Verb
tomb (third-person singular simple present tombs, present participle tombing, simple past and past participle tombed)
- To bury.
Proper noun capitalized: Tomb
Tomb (plural Tombs)
- A surname transferred from the given name.
tomb meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
tomb in Hindi
- small building or vault for the remains of the dead
- क़ब्र qabr, समाधि samādhi
tomb in Tamil
- கல்லறை, நினைவுக்கல் கொண்ட சமாதி
tomb in Marathi
- थडगे
tomb in Urdu
- small building or vault for the remains of the dead
- قَبْر qabr, مَزار mazār, مَدْفَن madfan, مَقْبَرَہ maqbara, مَرْقَد marqad
More languagesFewer languages
- tomb in Bengali
- কবর kobor, সমাধি śomadhi
- tomb in Malayalam
- ശവകുടീരം śavakuṭīraṁ, കുടീരം kuṭīraṁ
- tomb in Kannada
- ಹೂಳುಕಟ್ಟಡ
- tomb in Punjabi
- ਸਮਾਧ samādh
- tomb in Gujarati
- હજીરો hajīro
- tomb in Odia
- ସମାଧି
- tomb in Nepali
- चिहान, मकबरा
- tomb in Pashto
- ګور gor
- tomb in Arabic
- قَبْر qabr, ضَرِيح ḍarīḥ
- tomb in Malay
- makam
- tomb in Thai
- ที่ฝังศพ tîi-fǎng-sòp
- tomb in Vietnamese
- mộ, lăng tẩm, phần mộ
- tomb in Myanmar
- ဂူ gu
Examples of tomb in a sentence
- The Egyptian tomb remained unlooted until its discovery in the early twentieth century.
- A cenotaph was erected for him in Gaul, while his body was taken to Rome and inclosed in a magnificent tomb.
- Some nonmortuary artifacts were also discovered in the tomb.
Synonyms of tomb
Forms of tomb
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tombs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | tombs |
| present participle | tombing |
| past participle | tombed |
| past | tombed |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Tombs |
Origin of tomb
From Middle English tombe, toumbe, borrowed from Old French tombe, from Latin tumba from Ancient Greek τύμβος (túmbos, “a sepulchral mound, tomb, grave”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”). Displaced native Old English þrūh. The verb is from Middle English tomben.
Perhaps a variant spelling of Tom, with excrescent -b.
Words formed from tomb
Phrases with tomb
Words that rhyme with tomb
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- gloom
- home
- presume
- whom
- womb
- resume
- abloom
- legume
- loom
- rheum
- backroom
- boardroom
- combe
- coomb
- entomb
- enwomb
- exhume
- flume
- grume
- kaboom
- Khartoum
- neume
- packing room
- shroom
- sloom
- subsume
- absume
- addoom
- anteroom
- barroom
- bitume
- brume
- chum
- cloom
- cwm
- desume
- fixing room
- foredoom
- fwoom
- glume
- illume
- khoum
- locker room
- raying room
- simoom
- spume
- thoom
- toom
Questions about tomb
- What does tomb mean?
- Tomb means a small building, or a room within one, for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. It may be partly or wholly in the ground (except for its entrance) in a cemetery, or it may be inside a church proper or in its crypt. Single tombs may be permanently sealed; those for families (or other groups) have doors for access whenever needed.
- What is tomb in Hindi?
- Tomb in Hindi is क़ब्र (qabr), समाधि (samādhi). See Tomb meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is tomb?
- Tomb can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tomb?
- Tomb is pronounced /tuːm/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tomb?
- The plural of tomb is tombs.
Words near tomb in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tomb (page history and authors); Tomb (page history and authors); tomb (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tomb (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); കുടീരം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); tomb (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਸਮਾਧ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); હજીરો (Gujarati) (page history and authors); tomb (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tomb (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ګور (Pashto) (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: en-us-tomb.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tomb.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tomb. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.