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One who attends a funeral as a hired mourner. Mourners were provided to attend the funeral. L'Estrange.

A person employed by undertakers at a funeral.

An extemporaneous funeral song, composed and sung by a woman on the death of a friend. [Modern Greece]

A funeral song; an elegy.

A funeral solemnity or office; obsequies.

e plural. Spencer. I will...fetch him hence, and solemnly attend, With silent obsequy and funeral train. Milton I will myself Be the chief mourner at his obsequies. Dryden. The funeral obsequies were decently and privately performed by his family J. P. Mahaffy.

dignified manner; especially, a discourse having reference to some special occasion, as a funeral, an anniversary, a celebration, or the like; -- distinguished from an argument in court, a popular harangue, a sermon, a lecture, etc.; as, Webster's oration at Bunker Hill. The lord archbishop . . . made a long oration. B…

A large cloth, esp., a heavy black cloth, thrown over a coffin at a funeral; sometimes, also, over a tomb. Warriors carry the warrior's pall. Tennyson.

One of those who attend the coffin at a funeral; -- so called from the pall being formerly carried by them.

(formerly done to invoke prayers for the dying); also, a tolling during the passing of a funeral procession to the grave, or during funeral ceremonies. Sir W. Scott. Longfellow.

A funeral pile; a pyre. Dryden.

One who prepared corpses for the funeral.

One of turrets or pinnacles of waxwork and tapers with which the posts and center of a funeral hearse were formerly crowned. Oxf. Gloss.

A funeral pile; a combustible heap on which the dead are burned; hence, any pile to be burnt. For nine long nights, through all the dusky air, The pyres thick flaming shot a dismal glare. Pope.

The Beaks; the stage or platform in the forum where orations, pleadings, funeral harangues, etc., were delivered; -- so called because after the Latin war, it was adorned with the beaks of captured vessels; later, applied also to other platforms erected in Rome for the use of public orators.

A mouring garment; a funeral robe; -- generally in the plural. "Sables wove by destiny." Young.

A hired mourner at a funeral. [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

performed with religious reverence; religious or ritual ceremony; as, the solemnity of a funeral, a sacrament. Great was the cause; our old solemnities From no blind zeal or fond tradition rise, But saved from death, our Argives yearly pay These grateful honors to the god of day. Pope.

A Hindoo widow who immolates herself, or is immolated, on the funeral pile of her husband; -- so called because this act of self- immolation is regarded as envincing excellence of wifely character. [India]

A threne, or threnody; a dirge; a funeral song.