urn
/ɜːn/US/ɝn/
urn noun: a vase with a footed base.
Noun (1)
urn (plural urns)
- A vase with a footed base.
- A rustic, digging in the ground by Padua, […]found an urn, or earthen pot, in which there was another urn.1648, John Wilkins, Mathematicall Magick. Or, The Wonders that may be Performed by Mechanicall Geometry. […], London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Sa[muel] Gellibrand […], →OCLC
- His scattered limbs with my dead body burn, / And once more join us in the pious urn.1700, [John] Dryden, “Canace to Macareus”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC
- A metal vessel for serving tea or coffee.
- A vessel for the ashes or cremains of a deceased person.
- So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favourable speed
Ruffle thy mirror’d mast, and lead
Thro’ prosperous floods his holy urn.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
- So draw him home to those that mourn
- Any place of burial; the grave.
- Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, / Tombless, with no remembrance over them.1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- A measure of capacity for liquids, containing about three gallons and a half, wine measure. It was half the amphora, and four times the congius.
- A hollow body shaped like an urn, in which the spores of mosses are contained; a spore case; a theca.
Verb
urn (third-person singular simple present urns, present participle urning, simple past and past participle urned)
- To place in an urn.
Noun (2) capitalized: URN
URN (plural URNs)
- Initialism of uniform resource name.
urn meaning in Indonesian
urn in Indonesian
- a vase with a footed base
- pasu
- a vessel for ashes or cremains of a deceased person
- perabuan
Examples of urn in a sentence
- The urn containing his ashes was eventually removed to a closet.
- The urn shattered into smithereens the moment it hit the ground.
- A traditional Russian tea urn, a samovar, with bubliks, which are similar to bagels.
Forms of urn
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | urns |
| plural | URNs |
| alternative form (obsolete) | urne |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | urns |
| present participle | urning |
| past participle | urned |
| past | urned |
Origin of urn
From Middle English urne, from Old French urne, from Latin urna (“vessel”). Doublet of urna.
Words formed from urn
Phrases with urn
Words that rhyme with urn
Questions about urn
- What does urn mean?
- Urn means a vase with a footed base.
- What is urn in Indonesian?
- Urn in Indonesian is pasu, perabuan. See Urn meaning in Indonesian.
- What part of speech is urn?
- Urn can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce urn?
- Urn is pronounced /ɜːn/ (UK).
- What is the plural of urn?
- The plural of urn is urns.
Words near urn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: urn (page history and authors); URN (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)-Vealhurl-urn.wav.
Cite this entry: “urn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/urn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.