ossuary

[prettygoodword]

ossuary - n., a receptacle, such as an urn or a vault, for holding the bones of the dead.


Late Latin ossuarium, from neuter of Latin ossuarius, of bones, from os, bone. Wikipedia has this to say about ossuaries. Continuing O Boy Week.

---L.

Comments

[loup_noir]

Excellent "O" word. Thanks for the link, too. Ossuaries are fascinating. We visited the Golden Chamber in Koln last May. I want to see the one in the Czech Republic, too.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

My free-association with ossuary is Hydriotaphia (http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/browne/hydriotaphia.html), which of course doesn't begin with O at all, which means I can never remember the title.

---L.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Amusing story: someone poked into my office, looked at the word, and said, "That's a bird, isn't it." After some back-and-forth not quite worthy of Abbot and Costello, we finally worked out they had been thinking of cassowary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary).

Bird, urn -- same difference.

---L.