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tomb

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tomb¹

  • /tuːm/ UK, Wales
  • /tʉwm/ British, Southern, Standard
  • /tum/ Canada, US
  • /tʉːm/ Australia, New Zealand
  • /tʉm/ Northern Ireland, Scotland
  • /ʈumb/ South Asia

Rhymes with -uːm

Where it comes from

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.

noun tombs

  1. 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.

    Similar: burial chamber, sepulchre, vault

  2. broadly A pit in which the dead body of a human being is deposited. As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.

    Similar: grave

  3. 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.
  4. Death (literary) I'll go to the tomb unrepentant.

verb tombs · tombing · tombed

  1. transitive To bury.

Tomb²

Where it comes from

Perhaps a variant spelling of Tom, with excrescent -b.

proper noun Tombs

  1. A surname transferred from the given name.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: grave, headstone, gravestone, mausoleum, tombstone, cemetery, gravesite, graveyard, sepulcher, burial, mound, crypt, vault, woodwork, falls, graves

Translations

Every language

noun small building or vault for the remains of the dead

Españoltumba
한국어무덤 mudeom, 분묘 bunmyo
日本語墓 haka, 墳墓 funbo
中文墳墓 /坟墓 fénmù, 墓葬 mùzàng, 宅兆 zháizhào
हिन्दीक़ब्र qabr, समाधि samādhi
Portuguêstúmulo, tumba, jazigo
Françaistombeau, tombe
DeutschGrabmal, Gruft
Italianotomba
Ελληνικάτάφος táfos, ταφικό μνημείο tafikó mnimeío
Românămormânt
Русскийгробни́ца grobníca, склеп sklep
Tiếng Việtmộ, lăng tẩm, phần mộ
العربيةقَبْر qabr, ضَرِيح ḍarīḥ

noun pit in which the dead body of a human being is deposited

Españoltumba

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MLA

"tomb." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/tomb. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

tomb. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/tomb

Chicago

"tomb." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/tomb.

BibTeX
@misc{tomb_2026,
  title = {tomb},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/tomb},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}